Split
by windwings
Summary: One fine day, Severus Snape makes a disturbing discovery. Who is messing with his life? And why? This story was written for 2011 SSHG exchange and is СOMPLETE in 13 chapters.
1. Prologue

**A/N: **This story is written for 2011 SSHG Exchange and is complete. I'll post a chapter a day. I'd like to thank the ever-awesome Melusin for betaing this for me. All mistakes are mine, since I've tinkered with the story a bit. I would also like to thank Linlawless for her amazing prompts (this story was created after one of them - "Hermione is a woman with a plan. What plan is it and how does Snape figure into it?").

I would aldo like to thank all my amazing readers and reviewers. Please know, even if I don't get to you personally, every line you drop to me is precious.

Now, on to the story!

* * *

**Prologue**

The swarthy, stockily built jeweller had been examining her possession with disturbing zeal for at least ten minutes already and had yet to say a word. The way his fluffy brows were knitting together was making her more and more uneasy.

She coughed, trying to put as much meaning as possible into the sound. It seemed to work because, suddenly, the jeweller looked up at her, eyebrows looking like two furry roof slopes over his keen eyes.

"So, how long, are you saying, has this stone been owned by your family?" he said, a hint of some Mediterranean accent in his voice.

This was pronounced with so much scepticism that she mentally slapped herself. Damn and hell. She should have read up on the subject of gemstones more before rushing in to have _it _looked at.

But there was no backing out now.

"I only know for sure that my great-grandmother on my father's side owned it," she lied smoothly about the first thing that came to mind.

"And you have not... made an effort to trace its history back before that time?"

"No, not really. In fact, this is my starting point to do exactly that. You see, I have only recently come into... possession of this... stone."

Watching the jeweller's brows lose their rooftop likeness to form a giant uni-brow that dominated his face, she understood that she'd said the wrong thing.

"You see, ma'am..." The jeweller suddenly looked her over, as if seeing her in some kind of a new light. "... Stones like this... they don't traverse through history unnoticed. They all usually go by a name. They are numbered. And most of them only change owners when something... drastic happens to them. The owners, I mean. Wars... murders... falls of dynasties. Do you understand?"

Shit. He thought she'd stolen it and was naïve enough to have it checked out like this. Chances were, at the moment, he was mentally recounting recent big-scale jewel thefts. She really, really should have read up on it. And there she was, hoping she'd manage without magical interference.

Having decided that there was no way out of Obliviating the poor sod, she resolved to get as much as possible out of the man and be more careful in future. It gave her tone the necessary sharpness of surety as she spoke next.

"I see you are a great expert, sir. Maybe you recognize this stone?" she asked with a brittle smile.

"Maybe I do, m'dear; maybe I'm mistaken. But you have to understand, considering its size... and quality... It is one of a kind, really, and I—"

"And you have trouble believing a woman like me could own it?"

"...Yes, basically. Own it legally."

"But you have no trouble thinking I'm stupid enough to bring it to you, like I'm some poor tramp who wants to sell her grandmother's trophy half-carat diamond?"

The jeweller's mouth twitched, and his expression was screaming that, no, that idea, he had absolutely no trouble believing. But then something else registered in his brain, and his eyes glinted scarily.

"And you want to sell it?"

"Maybe." Another lie. Let him go with it. Let him think she'd be an easy touch. After all, this was what ladies came to him for often. But if he had known that she'd rather sell her kidney at the moment, he'd never share his observations with her. "Though, don't underestimate me, sir. I do realize that you may not have enough money to buy it," she added hastily, trying to counteract his pre-conceived image of an unfortunate ignoramus with no knowledge of what treasure belonged to her.

"My dear," the jeweller finally said, having taken another long look at his visitor. "Let me be frank with you. Whatever business brought you here, it is not mine to judge. I will make you a deal. If you tell me, in all honesty, everything there is in that pretty little head of yours, concerning this gem, I will offer you a price you could never have hoped for. And this shall be our little secret."

And this secret was going to lose its confidential status even before she'd left the building, she had no doubt of it. One didn't need to be a Legilimens to see how all the little gears in the man's head had started spinning, images of all the people he was going to call 'as soon as' popping into his brain. It wasn't what she'd hoped for, exactly, but working with what she had was one of her principles, and if she had to piece together some story to spike his interest, in order to get his opinion in return, so be it. After all,_Obliviate _was already out on the platter. She willed her features into a meek expression.

"My great-grandmother was... an adventurous woman," she started, laying a meaningful stress on 'adventurous', as if after all these years, her family still frowned upon their ancestor's bolder side.

"She hauled herself around the world quite a bit, going after one man after another. She kept her fair share of secrets."

Hopefully, it sounded conspiratorial. At least the jeweller seemed pleased.

"Granny, you see, she lived to see her hundredth birthday, and even when there wasn't a single tooth left in her head, she'd still ogle men's arses. She had a thing for uniforms."

Who would have thought she could be such an inspired liar! But now that she was cooking quite a meal out of her newly-found ability, the words flowed like a smooth river.

"I was her favourite great-grand daughter, sir. Because I was the only one who'd listen to all her wild-spun fairy-tales, about places she'd been to, men she—"

"I hear you, my dear, but about this stone, remember?"

Damn, she was almost disappointed that her pretty lie wasn't doomed to spin to its end.

"Yes, that. Forgive me, sir. I got carried away. So, before granny died, a little over a few months ago, she gave me this stone." She tried to look sad and wished she was able to cry at will. "She said that one of her... men gave it to her. I don't know who he was. She said she was very young and wild, and... even during her hardest times, she'd never had any intentions of selling it as she'd developed a very strong connection to the stone."

"Any hint of this stone's... origins?" the jeweller asked. He was looking bored stiff with her babbling.

She wracked her brains for any scraps of knowledge about precious gems and picked the first one that seemed feasible.

"I'm not sure, but my grandmother did spend some of her younger years in India," she said tentatively, hoping she'd stepped on the right spot in the swamp that was this man.

The jeweller held the stone up against a beam of sunlight streaking through a small, arched window.

"Yes, it does look like it could come from the mines of Golkonda. Not even one tenth of Shah Jahan's treasure has surfaced so far. However, black diamonds are not typical Indian riches, so—"

"So, it's a diamond?" she intercepted quickly. Finally, something. Though she had been pretty sure exactly what she'd stumbled upon, a Muggle perspective could come of use. Maybe, this very man could give her a hint without knowing it. Any sliver of information mattered now, considering how she was going to use her find.

"It is indeed. A black diamond. I thought you knew that. Its structure is rather spongy for a diamond and has quite a few impurities, but that's how diamonds get their colours."

The man snapped his mouth shut suddenly as if trying to catch the words crowding on his tongue, and it dawned on her. He was so eager to follow her false trace to India. And so reluctant to share details. A good businessman, he simply wanted to bargain for a better price, but when it came to the expertise, he was as clueless about the stone as she was. Well, at least she'd learnt something, even though the information had all the value of a bucket of water in the garden on a rainy day. Diamond: black, spongy, impurities. Not much. Nothing she couldn't have gathered on her own, in fact.

But if the stone was what she thought it was, seeking help from specialists in the Magical world was absolutely out of question.

Somewhere at the outskirts of her mind, she'd registered that the man's lips were moving, and his face took up an expectant set. She didn't care to even be polite and pretend that she'd misheard. An overwhelming feeling of tiredness and finality swept over her.

Pulling out a wand under the table, she cast a mild _Stupefy_, aiming at the man's knee, and then carefully obliterated any trace of her visit from his mind.


	2. Chapter 1

Severus Snape saw the Sign of Contact just as he was leaving a dingy little apothecary in Knockturn Alley—the kind of a shop where the owners didn't take too close a look at their patrons. The message board to the left of the dubious establishment was as 'respectable' as the rest of the businesses around. One shouldn't be surprised to find advertisements there, offering sexual favours that catered for the most whimsical tastes or smuggled and forbidden magical items offered for barter.

The Sign stood out immediately. It was a watery, cerise piece of... paper? Parchment? Severus couldn't tell and supposed no one else could. The desire to stay away from any forays into _that _place was not unusual.

The distinct transparency of the message did not leave any room for doubt as to its origins, even though Severus had never seen one before. In fact, he shouldn't have seen this one, either, but, taken over by curiosity, decided to ponder it later.

As was usual for Signs, there were only a few words scribbled on it. It was quite an innocuous one, in fact. Some woman asking to tell her daughter that she'd be watching over her. No name or any other mention of said daughter's identity. Must be someone gone only recently.

Severus sighed. The initial excitement of discovering his new ability had worn off and left him angry. He shouldn't have been surprised. He shouldn't have forgotten either, for that matter. But then something else occurred to him. It'd been almost ten years since his ordeal, and this was the first sign he'd come across? Surely the Contacts weren't that rare. Or were they? Severus found that he couldn't tell for sure, and it made him even more irritable. And he couldn't even remember having a Reversed Transition. He'd never bothered to find out, casting the information aside as useless, but oh, how it would have come in handy now. But that would mean paying a visit to Longbottom, the misfit who'd dragged him out of that hell's cove and shoved his almost-corpse to St Mungo's. Since it would also mean disclosure, it was a measure of last resort.

Or maybe he should just read up on the subject more. Fingering his wand, his hands stinging with a desire to blast something into pieces—the more pieces, the better—Severus marched to the Apparition point.

* * *

Strangely enough, the second Sign of Contact was left on his doorstep not two weeks after he'd spotted the first one. Ironically, he discovered it the very morning after a bottle of Ogden's cheapest had finally forced him to reconcile with his new 'talent', find it hugely overrated and decide to think nothing of it come morning.

The message was another pile of gibberish. It was the fact of its appearance that Severus found worthy of thinking over. And after such pondering, he was worried. Avery once told him that he and his 'kin' tended to draw _them_. Inadvertently, _they _always left messages somewhere close to where those able to read them dwelt, in order to warrant their notice. He'd always liked Avery. Well, maybe 'liked' was quite a bit of a stretch, but Avery had a straight-forwardness about him that Severus was inclined to appreciate. They also shared a certain mix of practicality and cynicism-in-general approach towards life, and they had both found the unnecessary, buoyant violence of their peers a despicable waste of time and magic.

To say nothing of the fact that Avery had always piqued Snape's interest with that ability of his. He had never been in the middle of Death Eater politics, and Severus was willing to bet an arm that Voldemort had tolerated Avery's inactivity and carelessness, when it came to the Cause, merely because of his rare gift.

Yes, it would be nice indeed to have a few words (and maybe a few drinks) with Avery. However, a visit to Avery had the same limiting quality: disclosure. A pity. Severus wouldn't have minded seeing a familiar face and being himself at the same time, for once.

* * *

Almost a month had passed, and quite uneventfully so. Severus's worry about his new manifesting 'talent' was put on the backburner. The ability couldn't be used as a free business plug—few people ever wanted to pass words to the other side. And even if they wanted to, this communication was a one-way street. One couldn't find or call the dead. It was always vice-versa.

Besides, with autumn's onset, Snape's concerns shifted to realms more mundane. Perhaps the stress, accumulated over all these years, had caught up with him now that he was finally getting accustomed to the relative safety of his existence and could afford to relax. Maybe an old wound or five and all those rounds of _Crucio _were saying 'hello' and bringing their regards from the past. He tired easily and went on needing at least nine hours of sleep daily, and that was saying a great deal. Strengthening Potions didn't have a lasting effect, and even that lessened as his body got used to their continuous ingestion. His sleep was fitful at best, plagued by disjointed images and dreams so vague he couldn't even tell whether they were proper nightmares.

Just about when Severus was ready to sit down and admit that he might need help outside his scope of knowledge and range of abilities, the third Sign of Contact popped up. In his very own herb garden, stuck under a brightly coloured pebble next to a bed of calendula flowers.

And this time, it wasn't some lost sodding soul wishing to pass on their pathetic shout-out to the living. No, this time, the fancy, elaborate scribble with arrogantly swirling letters, a sure sign of undying optimism on the verge of craziness, was immediately recognizable.

As soon as Snape registered the words in the missive, he recoiled with a sharp intake of breath, casting the translucent piece of... whatever they wrote on aside, as if it were a seemingly harmless bug that had turned out to have a sting with a hefty amount of poison.

He closed his eyes, willing his mind to concentrate on a potion, simmering in his cellar lab, on a stuffily-sweet smell of blooming night stocks—anything. But no, the paled writing, as if washed out by age, stood in front of his inner eye in fiery letters, no matter how he wished for it to go away.

_'What have you done, my boy?'_

The message was not signed—they seldom ever signed their notes for some reason—but it didn't need to be. This particular handwriting would be engraved in Snape's mind for as long as at least a single particle of his being existed on any plane.


	3. Chapter 2

Very many things seemed harmless, their vileness exaggerated, as long as they were distant, as long as they happened to someone else. With a great bit of annoyance and anger, Severus admitted that having one of the Necromantic gifts was one such thing.

Being able to receive messages from outside the mortal world had seemed boring and ordinary enough to him before. He'd never considered it an asset in Avery, like Voldemort had, and he realized now that it was due to the fact that he'd never heard of a message from someone he'd known, or sent to someone he knew.

A ghostly letter from Dumbledore, apart from the morbid question it stated, shone a new light on the matter. Before that point, those who were gone were actually _gone_ for Severus: unreachable, irreversible. Dead. But now his whole world tripped and turned upside down. If Dumbledore could reach out to him just like that, then so could James Potter, Lupin? All those unnumbered victims of the war, including his _own_victims? Maybe Voldemort, and even Li—

No, better not even go there.

At first, Severus obstinately refused to even consider the implications of this. Then his pragmatic side (with a big dash of self-defence instinct) finally kicked in, and there was no more denying that something had to be done. It also occurred to him that his obnoxiously variable health of late might be attributed to his new talent.

The question of 'what have you done' also remained on the agenda, even though for the life of him, Snape couldn't remember doing anything that could have led to... _that_.

St. Mungo's archive was his first stop on the road to finding out the real state of things. Luckily for him, it was a quiet, boring place, managed by a quiet, boring witch in her hundreds, who didn't even deign to question his assumed identity and his contrived reasons for needing the access.

Unluckily for him, the entire field of Wizarding medicine looked like a scientific swamp, inhabited by old slugs and leeches. His record was blissfully brief. Arrived in a state of coma, severe damage to this and that, compromised bloodstream. A list of potions administered and a death date, with a certificate copy. Not a single word about whether his heart had stopped and started beating again in the process or whether a Reversed Transition had been registered. The brevity of details was understandable; no one took notes in the rush of war, and later they were all made futile by his 'death', but it still irked him.

Longbottom it was, then.

* * *

The prospect of seeing Longbottom ordinarily would have made him furious, except that this time, it did not. Deep in his heart, in its most obscure corner, Severus harboured a profound feeling of gratitude towards Alice and Frank's child for chopping the blasted serpent's head off. A few years ago, George Weasley had invented a way to duplicate pensive memories, and his Memories of War series, a tribute to the other half of the Weasley tandem, had been a hit since. Neville Longbottom had been one of the first to give material and consent to share his moment of glory with the world. Snape had gone as far as having a small blue bottle with a memory copy owled to him. He'd been telling himself that it was merely his typical interest towards any work of genius, but, oh, how overwhelming was his satisfaction at seeing the snake's head fly off its body, spattering the clots of vile, black blood, the body itself quivering in its last, hopeless convulsions.

Surely Neville Longbottom had a few redeeming qualities, and the visit shouldn't be so bad.

* * *

Looking up Longbottom's address, Severus realized that he was still living with his hag of a grandmother.

After that, if there were any of those redeeming qualities left in him, they dissipated as soon as Snape showed up one day on Neville's doorstep.

Of all the possible reactions, Longbottom shrieked like a teakettle and started rubbing his eyes. Severus was absolutely in no mood for the poor sod's insecurities to rear their ugly head at that very moment.

"Oh, do hold yourself together, Longbottom. I'm not a ghost or an apparition. Neither am I dead," Snape said, trying to hold on to the last vestiges of his suddenly extinct patience.

Longbottom seemed to calm down, though he started hiccupping.

"Apparently, you're neither of those things, Professor, ik-ugh. Though judging by the way you look, you could be any one of them or all three put altogether."

Snape willed a small smirk to stay inside.

"I'm not your Professor, either," he rumbled in a reconciliatory tone.

"Um... I suppose, I should ask you what brings you here, but—"

"But you would much rather know why am I not dead like everyone else thinks I am?"

"In a word, yes."

Severus had always liked frankness. It was this simple straight-forwardness that had always appealed to him in Gryffindors, and suddenly Longbottom's slightly cowed stance and wary eyes didn't matter that much.

"Are you going to make me talk over the threshold, or did your grandmother let you live 'til almost thirty without instilling at least a modicum of politeness in you?"

"Oh, sorry, sir. Come on in. Grandma is... She's ill, you see. I moved here to take care of her."

"How noble of you, Longbottom," Snape said, but his remark lacked its usual share of sarcasm.

After answering to a loud yell from upstairs (which Severus by no means would say was coming from a person in their sickbed) that a friend had come over, Longbottom had gone to the kitchen to make tea, and Snape had had a few minutes to look around.

Augusta's abode hadn't changed over the last twenty-odd years or so. It was still a queer mix of old things—and they weren't old in pleasant, antique way, just a plain shabby kind of old—and decades of family heirlooms strewn about here and there.

Very soon, Longbottom's boyishly gangly form emerged from the kitchen. He was carrying two steaming cups of tea. Placing them on a teetering coffee table that had seen much better days, Neville folded himself into a chair across from Snape and raised his eyebrows questioningly.

Severus sighed and tried to summon up some of that disdain which had allowed him to disregard the sentiments of the likes of Longbottom while he had been working at Hogwarts, but couldn't find any. A decade of being left alone and not having to deal with children and their puerile idiocy had mellowed him. So many things had changed. And once more, he only noticed them when it concerned him directly. This thought placed a crease between his eyebrows. But after all, it was he who'd be asking for a favour. No big deal in obliging the boy's question.

"This is not to leave this room, Longbottom. I faked my own death for obvious reasons," Severus grumbled.

If Neville found said reasons not so obvious, he didn't say anything, to Snape's sheer relief.

"I assume you didn't come here to thank me for saving your sorry arse, sir," Longbottom said, but there was no bitterness or malice in his voice.

"No." That same sincerity and straight-forwardness worked well with Gryffindors, and expectedly, Neville smiled at that.

"I didn't suppose so."

Good. Snape took a sip of his tea to gather himself for the words to come. It tasted disgusting. Apparently, some things never changed, and Longbottom's bungling inadequacy, when it came to mixing ingredients, was one of them.

"I have to ask you something, Longbottom."

Neville said nothing and gave a curious look instead, so Snape just went on.

"When you... when you dragged me out of the Shack..." He paused and took another sip—to hell with its horrible taste. "Do you remember if my heart ever stopped? If I stopped breathing? Even for a minute? Maybe they mentioned it at St Mungo's?"

Neville narrowed his eyes somewhat, as if trying to gorge gauge the reasons behind Snape's questions.

"You kept looking at me almost all the way to St Mungo's. You just stared, right through me. I don't think you were actually seeing me, but you stared, like if you had stopped, you'd slip. No, Professor, you didn't die. At least not in my hands, not for a second."

"Are you sure?" Snape asked automatically.

"You didn't make a Transition, sir. Not that I know of," Neville said firmly.

It slightly poked Snape that he'd use that word. No, the term and the knowledge itself were quite common. But not common enough for someone as timid and dim as the Longbottom he'd known to suddenly grab onto it as if he were as sharp as a good Slytherin.

"Fine, then. That's all I needed to know," Snape said and rose to leave. "And thanks," he added, after a minute pondering.

"Are you a Necromancer now, sir? Is that why you're asking?"

Damn nosy Gryffindors.

"Why I'm asking is none of your business."

"Of course not. My mum... was one."

That got Snape's attention.

He turned around and hoped that his face looked inviting enough for Longbottom to elaborate.

"Not that she ever really boasted about it. But Dad and Gran knew. And Dumbledore. I suppose that was one of her assets in the Order."

Snape thought of Avery and almost cringed hearing that. Voldemort and Dumbledore, fighting for causes that were mutually exclusive, and yet both having more similarities than Snape wished to know of.

"When she was eight," Longbottom went on, "a Grindylow child played with her in the lake and... well, their games are a bit too crass for humans. She wasn't breathing when my grandfather dragged her out. After that, she could receive messages from dead people. She could also tell if someone she'd known had died. Or if someone had died in this or that place. And she could find... bodies. I don't know much. Gran does, though. But one thing I'm certain about: it didn't take her ten years to grow some balls and start asking questions."

On the one hand, the off-handish remark had made Snape flare his nostrils in fury, but on the other, he was glad that Longbottom's sharpness only stretched so far as to think Snape was a little bit of a coward.

What little scraps Snape had gleaned from a few related texts in his own library stated unconditionally that the ability manifested almost immediately. So, either he was an exception, and his Transition had gone without being noticed by Longbottom or St Mungo's staff, or he was made a Necromancer a couple of months ago. And if that was the case, it had happened without his knowledge. Or consent.

He'd made a swift exit before Longbottom had had any delusions about paving his way towards chumminess with his former and formerly terrifying professor.


	4. Chapter 3

Avery had the grace to look like they'd only parted ways a few weeks ago.

"Severus, my long-lost friend. What brings you to my humble abode?"

Severus eyed his far-from-humble abode and his rather blossoming blond wellness.

"What, you aren't going to throw a fit about me not being dead?" he asked half-heartedly.

Avery laughed, in a way which was as contagious as dragon-pox. Severus's mouth crooked upwards in a reluctant almost-smile.

"Good Nimue, Severus, I've never thought you were dead. You'd probably start pestering me about all things imaginable right after your malevolent little spirit left your body to the point where I'd have to have you exorcised."

They both knew it wasn't true, but Severus felt ridiculously glad to know that Avery and his crude sense of humour hadn't changed one bit. It was good to have an anchor like that in a world which was totally unfamiliar to him right now.

Waving his hand with a flourish, Avery invited Snape to come into the house.

* * *

"I've never heard of anything like that," Avery stated, rubbing his chin after Snape had relayed his story and, quite unwillingly, a few details about his recent situation to him. "Not that I'm the most knowledgeable person to ask. I don't carry out any close personal relationships with... my kin."

"Books?" Severus asked curtly.

"Not that I can think of. See, Severus, for all its morbid way of sounding, Necromancy is not exactly a complex and multifaceted field of magic. It's the myths, springing from the fact that it deals with the dead."

This opinion was not new to Snape. However, he'd never given Necromancy enough importance to delve deeply into the 'whys' of it. He regretted it now: for Avery to prove to be more knowledgeable than Snape was a picture-in-the-paper kind of occasion, so he was going to have a field day with it.

"You see, my friend," Avery went on, doing his best to look smart and decorative, "Necromancy is basically passive. You can't summon spirits, unless they choose to come to you, and creation of Dementors and Inferi is just plain old Dark Arts, which have nothing to do with anything otherworldly. We even know close to nothing about the plane beyond because those spirits that choose to contact the living aren't there to talk about where they are now. They are there because they still cling to the mortal world. Such flimsy source of information, they are. That's why it isn't your biggest scholarly attraction."

"Oh, do refrain from your mentoring tone, Nigel," Severus said, aggravated.

Avery sighed, sat down right in front of Snape and stared at him intently.

"You don't look to good, by the way."

"I have a packed brewing schedule."

"Don't be snippy. Whatever is going on here with you, Severus, it's something remarkably unfamiliar and... alien to me, if you ask my opinion," he said with an honesty and openness rarely seen a Slytherin.

"Well, that was most certainly helpful," Snape replied acidly.

"I said, don't. I'm trying to help, but I'm not the one with pretensions to omniscience."

"My pretensions have just been thoroughly stamped upon, remember?"

Avery smirked. It was always the way they went. Verbal sparring, quick understanding, few words exchanged, but so much communicated.

"It felt spectacular. What are you planning to do with it?"

"Believe it or not, I have no plans whatsoever right now," Severus replied, and took a minute to consider his own statement, sipping from his glass.

* * *

It had felt oddly energizing to see Avery, to be able to talk just like old times. But more important was the feeling that Avery _knew_ and Snape _knew_: each other, the truth, the situation, nothing in particular. They knew in the most general sense of the word, and knowledge and past didn't bother either of them. It had been ten years since he'd been was Severus Snape with anyone. Longbottom didn't count.

Snape was grateful to his inner sense of self-preservation, which had prevented him from mentioning Dumbledore's letter to Avery. Nigel would have had little else to add, and Severus's experience was telling him that such disconcerting details were better left unsaid. Indeed, of all that constituted the 'case with Snape's Necromancy', as Avery had labeled it, it was Dumbledore's letter that was causing the most worrisome thoughts.

Snape's mind kept going back to it, over and over again, mulling it around his brain to no avail. Ever the elusive man with mysterious reasoning and vague goals, Dumbledore must have stood out even after his death. Whatever stand he'd decided to take in the world beyond (the 'clinging', as Nigel called it, or crossing the point of no return), Dumbledore would be the man to go furthest of all. And if he was saying that Severus 'had done' something, than something had obviously been done.

Deep in thought, Snape walked along the narrow, paved street which led from Avery's house to the more crowded parts of magical Inverness, which happened to have a large Wizarding community.

He was suddenly ripped out of his reverie by a muffled shriek. Focusing on the source of the sound, he discovered that he was standing almost nose to nose with none other than Hermione Granger. Wide-eyed and open-mouthed, she was staring at him like he was one of Hades's vile creations that had broken free to roam the Earth and was about to devour her whole.

What the...

It took Snape a second to realize that her state of mental disarray at his sight was most probably due to the fact that she'd recognized him. And if she did...

Oh, no. No. Panicking, Severus reached for his wand and made an infinitesimal tug at his Glamours. And they were not there. Obviously, he was a few Sickles short of a Galleon if half a glass of Avery's homemade wine had made him so adventurous that he'd forgot to pull up his covers. Thank the gods it was Granger he'd met. Who knew what kind of visitors frequented the neighbourhood?

At first, she'd stared at him in amazement, then squealed like Mrs. Norris in a heap of catnip and started walking around him, touching him up like he was a naked, magical marble statue.

Merlin, what to do? Obliviating her was an option. Even though Severus was far from a dab hand at Memory Charms, at the moment he had little to no qualms about having Miss Grange spend a sordid sojourn at St Mungo's because her brain was temporarily a blank slate. In his state of panic at being caught so for the first time in his life, Severus could only register that she kept chattering about something. Some words made it through the haze, and his brain filed away 'alive' and 'whole' and 'haunt me again'. Each seemed harmless enough, though they did have a worrisome ring to them, and then—

He'd already started pulling out his wand when she suddenly gave out a crazed laugh.

"So it worked! Oh, my god, it worked! It's really you! And you're alive!"

Her puzzling words, stuffed in between bouts of triumphant giggles, did a much better job of stopping his hand than his conscience ever would. Of course, of course. Hermione Granger was, for some reason, a few streets away from Nigel Avery's house in Inverness. She wouldn't be here for a leisurely stroll. Not in this kind of place. What was going on?

"What worked?" he asked in a tone he found not nearly intimidating enough somewhere in the back of his brain.


	5. Chapter 4

"You're back! Back to life!" she gibbered, her eyes flashing from his face to his body, as if he were some sort of Frankenstein's monster that she'd sparked with something terrible, and he'd risen and walked. She fluttered around him, like she would around a highly unusual Christmas tree, touching him with a tentative hand.

"For gods' sake, stop pawing at me," Severus hissed, batting her hands off.

She was immediately back in the here and now, backing off a little, cowed slightly. But then something seemed to click in her head, and her hands balled at her hips. Meeting-of-the-challenge position he seemed to recognize from back in the Hogwarts era.

"Don't you wish you could take points and give me a detention?" she asked, not entirely without glee.

Severus was swift to act. They were still in a small backstreet of Inverness, which swelled with Muggle-repellent magic to assure its relative emptiness, but which was also a good distance away from where magical folk puttered and went about their business night and day.

In a blink of an eye, he had her wand. His own was pressed to the pulse point at her throat. She had the audacity to look betrayed and hurt.

"Now, Miss Granger, you have two options."

In fact, she only had one.

"I don't believe it is the work of the Fates or coincidence that brought you to this very part of Inverness at this hour. Only a certain type of business could bring one here, and you're not the kind of witch to be here casually. You have two minutes to give me an explanation. And then you are going to tell me what your senseless joy is all about, and exactly what 'worked'. If I am satisfied with your story, I'll only obliterate these last few minutes from the space between your ears. If you aren't as accommodating as I hope you will be, I'll pull what I need out of you regardless, but my hand might just quiver enough while Obliviating you to cause prominent damage to your cerebral cortex."

He hoped to sound menacing. But once again, he didn't leave room for the ten years that had passed since the time Hermione Granger would normally have welled up, stuck her chin out defiantly and done what elders with authority told her to do. Besides, what authority did he have over her now?

She looked at him with the same curious triumph and not a mite of fear in her eyes.

"Merlin, it's really you. Pray tell, Mr. Snape, what makes you think that you are the one who should be asking the questions here?"

Snape gave her a condescending eyebrow.

"My wand at your throat and yours in my pocket."

She seemed to be taken down a notch.

"You might consider that a civilized conversation makes me more _accommodating_than medieval power games," she said, her eyes indignant slits.

Suddenly, it dawned on Snape that he was holding a woman at wandpoint, having disarmed her, merely because she happened to be heading to Avery's house at the same time he was leaving it.

He backed off, eyeing her warily, but kept her wand.

"What are you doing here?" he asked the first obvious question.

"I could ask you the same question, and, I suppose, mine has a priority in being voiced since you should be asking it, too. What are _you_doing here? You should be dead. And you are not. Which means, it worked. But obviously, you aren't preoccupied with your existential crisis, then you probably want details, and this is the first place you'd come to look for some." She paused, looking, of all things, like a star student appreciating the impression their brilliant answer had made in class. "Since Mr. Avery chose to live in a place so boring that any other reason for a wizard's being here is clearly contrived, I won't lie to you and admit that I'm also here to see him."

There she went again.

"What worked?" Snape blurted out, his brain unable to let go of the single most important thing of the moment.

"Don't act like you don't know. It should be clear to you because you're here now," she replied off-handedly, but a note of doubt and fear was in her voice.

Severus took a deep breath and willed his entire stock of patience, which was close to finite at the moment, to come to his aid.

"Start. From. The beginning." The words were gritted out through clenched teeth, and the effort that it took to stop himself from blasting the damned little upstart into a myriad of pieces was inhuman.

* * *

"Correct me if I'm wrong, Miss Granger, because the notion is so ridiculous that the words I'm about to say taste rotten on my tongue," Severus seethed some time later when the two had calmed down enough to find a place more appropriate for story-telling, and Miss Granger had done her explaining. "When you searched for some Potions ingredient or other, you found the Resurrection Stone, one of the Deathly Hallows, that Potter dropped in the Forbidden Forest, and used it to bring me back to life? And you wanted to see Mr. Avery, as the only Necromancer you remotely know of, to clarify some details?"

He must have regained his teaching _modus operandi_very quickly and looked formidable enough because her confidence dissipated like morning ice on a puddle of water in April.

"When you say it so, it does sound terribly stupid, but yes, that's what I have done. But it worked, didn't it? Trust me, I read up everything I could before I... and Mr. Lovegood shared a great bit, now that the war is over, and it was safe to—"

"Forgive me for putting a damper on your delusions about your own work of genius, but I feel I must inform you that I already _was_alive when you decided to play God," Snape growled.

That chit. How dare she? Severus was volcanically angry.

The way she inhaled with a hiss at his declaration and covered her mouth, looking for all she was fundamentally ashamed, did nothing to quench the fire of his fury, though it was satisfying to see.

"What have I done?" she asked the air to her left. Her voice wavered with terror. Severus could almost imagine he'd felt a pang of pity.

"I hope that is a rhetorical question that will keep bugging you for the rest of your life," he spat with malice and turned away.

The fact was that, on a certain level, the whole situation was idiotically curious to him. It only served to irritate him more, of course, because most certainly he could not maintain his pride and act as if he was shatteringly wronged if he started asking all these questions. But oh, how they crowded up in his mouth. Why him? Why not the Black cur, or Lupin, everyone's tamed wolf-puppy, or Tonks, his wife? Why not Dumbledore? Why did she need to see Avery? Did his newly-found ability to receive messages from the dead have anything to do with her attempt at resurrection? And Dumbledore's message... And the stone itself. How would it feel to hold it? Could it bring back... No. Better not go there.

The thought of _her_suddenly sobered Severus up. He thought he'd heard something like sobbing behind him, and it effectively stamped over his scientific side, which demanded satisfaction.

"I'm off to going, Miss Granger. Do everyone a favour, and check your facts next time you decide to undertake another misfortunate experiment."

This wasn't entirely fair to say since he'd done everything in his power to make sure that the 'facts' said that Severus Snape had died in St. Mungo's, without regaining consciousness, of blood loss and snake venom poisoning. But it was a little beside the point to mention it now.

The tiny park where they had gone for this talk started to get gloomier as evening descended. The shadows of the trees lengthened, and the light slanted and fractured. Severus looked around, trying to scour some peace from the beautiful sight around him.

"Wait. There's more, sir," Miss Granger's timid voice reached him from behind.

He turned round with an air of boredom, but was immediately disconcerted by the look of fear in her eyes.

"I don't think you're entirely... unscathed, sir. When I turned the stone... something happened. This is not the first time I've seen you. You've been haunting me, in my house. I know it's you, though your doppelganger looks... different. The stone brought back... something. And this something... has to do with you."

It all rushed into Severus suddenly. The dizziness, the headaches, exhaustion.

_You don't look too good, Severus. _Avery's voice in his head.

_What have you done, my boy?_This time the message was voiced, and the Dumbledore in his mind sounded frightened.

Severus's head spun, and he swooned as if floating on puffs of murky fog. He staggered, and a steady hand caught his elbow.

"Are you all right, sir?"

He opened his eyes only to find Granger's own ones staring up at him.

He shrugged her hand off like it was something contagious. She recoiled.

"I will do everything I can to reverse whatever it is that I've already done," Granger spoke solemnly in a shaky voice.

Severus could swear that this perspective scared him far more than what had already been done to him.

"Don't you dare to do anything unless I permit it. This is my life we are talking about."

She teared up again.

"And don't you start leaking now, for Merlin's sake!"

She gave out a wrenched sob.

Severus snarled, frustrated, scared and beaten beyond his wit, and putting all of his will into concentration on a spell and a spot, Disapparated before he could do anything drastic to one Miss Hermione Granger.


	6. Chapter 5

The next morning, the sun shone with glaring brightness, lighting up all the growing things with vivid colours and warmth. Nature itself seemed to be relishing in the last bits of summer, soaking up the light and rejoicing in the flocks of vagrant birds, crossing the sky in triangles and lines.

And, of course, it only added to Severus's profound misery to find that even his own little world outside was so unsympathetic of his ordeal. A couple of geese had stopped at the small pond in his garden on their way south, and now were filling his back garden with merry clatter and clacking.

Severus swore and wished he could stomach the thought of food right now, otherwise, he'd quite happily use a couple of fireballs? and the remains of the dill in the kitchen herb bed to cook himself a hearty meal.

One Miss Hermione Granger had got unbelievably lucky the day before: Snape's own state of shock had prevented her untimely death or at least a crippling injury, of that Severus was sure. He hadn't slept a wink, and at a certain point during the night, he'd realized that his haunting not-quite-nightmares, those visions that coalesced into nothing but mawkish abstractions, had a reason. And the reason was that something, some part of him, was missing. It was called upon by a force he didn't care to ponder deeper when one blasted Miss Hermione Granger turned _the_ Stone.

Too many whys and hows were swirling in his head at the moment, but in the wee hours of the morning, a single one had started dominating. Why had she done this? Who had given her the right to play with him so? Even presuming he was dead, who was she to decide between others' lives and deaths? Each time Severus posed one of these questions to himself, he became so outraged that it resulted in imminent death for another piece of his meagre cutlery. When he was left with the option of eating from a cauldron or taking his anger out on its source, he left the house.

And this was how one unfortunate Miss Hermione Granger came to find one very distraught Severus Snape on her doorstep at seven in the morning.

The minute she opened the door, Snape was ready to admit that he was about to contemplate the Unforgivables. Technically and statistically, he was dead. And who would charge a dead man with anything? However, as soon as he'd looked at her face, the wind was let out of his sails almost entirely. She looked like she'd been dragged through all the atrocities of hell and backwards by her hair, and still, somehow, managed to maintain a strange reserved dignity of one who acknowledged all the wrongs they'd done and then some.

Severus cringed: if there was anyone who knew a thing or five about guilt, that someone would be him, and 'guilt' was all but burned onto Granger's forehead with a white-hot wand tip. He realized that he wanted her to start grovelling and begging for his forgiveness or give a fantastically idiotic reason for what she'd done, something like having been infatuated with him since she was twelve and unable to let go. He'd be repulsed, and his anger would flare right up again. He already knew she'd do none of these things.

"I thought you'd come, Professor," she said simply, and stepped aside to let him in.

He strode inside a ridiculously welcoming little place. There was nothing girly in it: no flowery taffeta armchairs or opulent curtains, no senseless items many women seem to have an urge to hoard. Yet, it did carry a definitely feminine touch. Severus couldn't tell exactly why he thought so. One thing he could tell for sure was that he suddenly felt calm and at home.

Miss Granger stood aside, watching him look over her house warily. Severus hoped she wouldn't gather her wits about her enough to offer him a seat and tea. The house had already had a strange, livening effect on him, and he supposed if he sat in that leather chair, obviously intended for guests, he'd lose all his anger completely.

"I gather you're here to give me quite an earful, sir," Granger said suddenly with a slight challenge in her voice.

"Yes, I am. Just taken aback a bit that you're not yet dissolving into soggy heaps of teary apologizing," he replied with snark.

"You're lucky, then, I did my soggy heaping and dissolving during the night."

"A litany of arguments and oh-so-important and totally justified reasons as to why someone who supposedly rests in peace should be raised from the dead?"

"Sorry, Professor. Done that quite a while ago, for my own self. But if you want a repeat—"

"Yes, I do want a godsdamned repeat," Snape barked, finally getting a kick-in from his fury. "I do want to know why and how someone's sense of self-importance can reach such mythical proportions that raising the dead becomes a viable course of action."

"It's almost nice to see your best teaching persona emerge without a single change to it," Granger snapped, any trace of guilt gone from her eyes. "I didn't try and call on you because I thought I'd fancy turning the stone and summoning my old teacher on a whim."

"Are you actually telling me you had a _good reason_ for doing just that?" Snape asked disdainfully.

"No," she answered and straightened up. "No, I'm not saying anything about good reasons. Or, to be more honest, I could probably make up a small pile by now, but I... think you deserve better."

"How very Gryffindor of you, Miss Granger, to cover your miserable lack of fantasy with brutal honesty. And yet, there's a why behind every action, and I want to know yours. I feel like I _deserve_ it, specifically because the aftermath is causing me major pains in the posterior. If you know the Peverell brothers' story, you should have kept in mind what happened to the initial owner of the stone."

"Yes, yes... Um... Why don't we sit?"

Severus was actually glad to take the offered seat. His joints were never fond of lengthy conversations had on foot, and now he was actually sure that the anger, necessary to maintain the needed tone of dialogue, would remain.

"Sir, what I'm about to tell you may sound shocking and very... cynical," Miss Granger said, once they had sat down: he, in a leather armchair, and she on a small couch.

"You are talking to a Death Eater, here, Miss Granger," Snape replied, not bothering to add 'former'. "Don't make your idiocy more prominent by thinking I don't know shocking or cynical."

"Of course," she said primly. "Then I'll just go ahead with it."

She coughed and took a deep breath, and for a moment Snape had a niggling thought that Miss Granger must have been put on a high stool one time too many during her childhood. He rolled his eyes, but held back a comment. Whatever she was about to say, she definitely felt that he was going to be scandalized.

"I did it purely out of scientific interest, sir," she blurted out. "You see, when I found the Stone... I wasn't going to summon any spirits. I wasn't even sure, what it was. I even had it checked out by a Muggle jeweller. But then I started reading into it, weaselled a few facts out of Xeno Lovegood, and got a few books on Necromancy. I even talked to a few ghosts. Although, Necromancy seems like a largely speculative field of science, I... You just seemed like the best one to call upon. Dumbledore is a bit too... and Tonks and Professor Lupin, I just..."

Ghosts, he was thinking about ghosts and the reasons why this thought was conjured up in a by-the-book know-it-all's brain and never even passed his when her words caught up with him. He, Severus Snape was merely a subject of a scientific experiment.

And to his horror, and, yes, shock, this kind of cynicism, the cynicism of an extremely curious researcher, was something he actually could understand. And the worst thing about it was that since he could relate to it so much, remembering all too well his own start with the Dark Arts, there was nothing he could say to make a valid, honest reproach.

His face must have been really curious to look at, judging by the array of expressions shifting over her features. Scared to hopeful to confused to horrified to desperate.

"Well, you did manage to shock me," Snape said clearing his throat. "I'll give you that."

"I know you don't have a very high opinion of my character, but... Please tell me you don't hate me," Granger said pleadingly.

"Hate is too strong a word for someone I don't give two Knuts about," he answered suddenly irritated.

"My main reason was what Harry told me. I knew I'd succeed. When he turned the stone, he was given a chance to see his parents, and Sirius, and Remus and Tonks, in a pivotal moment of his life. It helped him, and they went back in peace. I don't think they were in any way afflicted. "

"Are you trying to tell me that you turned the stone when you were experiencing some kind of a, how did you put it, pivotal moment?" Snape said sceptically.

"No, I didn't. Besides, I so wanted to know what it's like... on the other side. And you were always so wordy with your lectures, so exact and eloquent. You were the best choice to tell me." She hung her head and slumped in the sofa. "But if we had managed to communicate, I'd tell you that..." She paused, biting her lip.

"What would you tell me?" he asked cautiously. Probably some sentimental claptrap or other, but something in him wanted to hear it, nonetheless.

"I know, it sounds like a horribly worn-out platitude, but I'd tell you that you are missed and that more people than you could probably imagine think that you were... I mean... are a great man."

Snape didn't really know what to say to that. It was, indeed, a worn-out platitude, but the kind it never hurt to hear.

"I think I've cleared up your reasoning for aping the idea of research, and I even have to say that I find it novel and quaint that a Gryffindor, for once, didn't act on their pious hopes or wasn't trying to exact their own brand of Gryffindor justice—"

"Oh, for gods' sake, don't make it all about the Houses. This is just old," she snapped, looking shamefaced, however.

"Whatever. The problem of reversing this situation remains, and I expect a solution soon because it seems to be having a deteriorating effect on my health and life."

She hung her head.

"That's why I was going to see Mr. Avery."

"And did you?"

Strange, but he didn't know if she had.

"No. I... I think we should work together on this, and if we are to visit him, we both should go."

Severus really tried to look appalled. But on a certain level, he refused to comprehend the idea actually excited him. Hermione Granger was, even he had always grudgingly admitted, a brilliant scholar. Not excessively inventive, which would have made teamwork difficult, much more diligent than, say, Draco, and her sense of self-importance had always been quirky at best, which meant he could take the lead part easily and let her do the monkey work. And, what the hell. Even if he seemed to be the focal point of all the experimenting and research, the very concept of studying something as obscure and uncharted sent a pleasant thrill through his veins.

"So, your vaunted Gryffindor bravery gave up on you at Avery's doorstep, and now you need a chaperone?" he asked instead.

She rolled her eyes, nonplussed. Good for her. It would be a pain in the neck to work with her if she took offence at every barb he was destined to let slip, or slip in on purpose.

"Think what you want. You're stuck with me anyway," she said, and didn't look like she was horrified by the idea. "We have a lot of things to plan and discuss today, then. Tea?"

"Tea would be lovely, thank you," he said with deliberately exaggerated politeness. Hopefully, her tea brewing skills weren't as abysmal as Longbottom's.


	7. Chapter 6

When Severus left Granger's house some four hours later, his stomach and, subsequently, bladder were full of tea and its by-products, his pockets were laden with miniature copies of notes they had made during their brain-storming session, and his mind was loaded with food for thought.

The only thing that seemed definite was that when Granger had turned the stone, something had parted from Severus. She'd told him that she had definitely seen a shape or a shade, which she'd thought at the time to be his ghost, and that from time to time, she kept seeing it in her house at night. The shade didn't seem to be malevolent, nor did it attempt to bring Granger any harm. The expression on Granger's face, when she spoke of that shadow, puzzled him in a way he didn't like, but when he asked her about it, she couldn't say anything definite. It also seemed indisputable that his newly found Necromantic affinity was rooted in the Resurrection Stone incident. They'd compared the dates. His first Sign of Contact had appeared roughly four days after the stone-turning.

Apart from this, nothing seemed clear, and the questions multiplied exponentially the more they speculated. They'd outlined several courses of action and determined a few sources of information, but even now it looked like unless they found something which could be considered a breakthrough, they'd be going round in circles.

There was another thing: a strange sense of contentment that Severus had first attributed to the distraction of being immersed in an exciting project.

The excitement was still surging through his blood when he reached his home, offering afterthoughts and additions to their notes, fishing book titles out of his memory and panning out further actions, but the contentment melted off him and gave way to the fatigue and unrest that had been his companions for the last few months. Now that the contrast was sharp, Severus was finally able to fully understand the abnormality of his recent state.

He brewed a little, read, and drank more tea. He even went as far as weeding his herb bed by hand, but nothing seemed to be of any help.

Frustrated, Severus went to bed early and soon succumbed to uneasy sleep full of the same disturbing not-quite-nightmares and things he couldn't remember, things that left him sick and anxiety-ridden in the morning.

* * *

Next morning, he woke up with a purpose. He cast a silent Tempus spell. Barely six and nothing to do. He'd scoured his own library for anything on Necromancy weeks ago, and though his finds were saddeningly few, it was worth a try to let Granger have a go at them. She seemed to have a way with books. Perhaps she might cast a new look over old things.

Grabbing his copy of their notes, the books and the wand, he set off.

Severus opened the front door of his house to an icy, bright Autumn morning. Judging by how quiet and still the air was, it was still too early even for a business visit. He Apparated to a spot a few hundred yards away from Granger's small house in its tiny Muggle neighbourhood and decided to walk.

The place where she lived was nothing memorable. Just a small village that had been home to dozens of generations of fishermen and smugglers. Its Magical part had vanished long ago due to sea erosion, and it was one of the few places that hadn't been submerged in touristy attractions, yacht clubs and rampaging holidaymakers since it offered no great views nor a gracious descent to the beach.

Snape suddenly caught himself wondering why she lived there alone and, subsequently, wondering why he was wondering at all. As far as he remembered, during those first couple of years after the war when the hype over the winners of the battle of Hogwarts was still high, she'd appeared in the papers always joined at the hip with the Weasley boy. Whatever had happened to him?

Severus shook his head, mentally berating himself for such supercilious thoughts. After a few minutes of walking, he realized that he was feeling much better. Strange. Seashore air? Hardly. Why was it?

All too soon, Granger's little house sneaked up on him from around the corner. It wasn't shabby or old, but didn't have a touch of individuality or face to it. A few shrubs and bushes that hugged the house were underwatered and overgrown, and the small front garden looked neglected. Hermione Granger had obviously a few things on her mind, and her own dwelling was way down on her list.

His sense of contentment and odd wholeness was growing as he approached the house, of that he was certain now. Could it have something to do with the fact that whatever part had been ripped from him in the process of turning the Resurrection Stone, had taken abode in this house? Severus pondered it for a few seconds, rubbing his chin, but then his eye caught something eerily familiar.

The note was somewhat sloppy, but the luminescent quality of the material was unmistakable. Another Sign of Contact. Strange that it had appeared here, judging by the list of all known Necromancers that Avery had managed to procure and owl him the other day. Maybe it had to do with his recent appearance? But then he realized that there was something else that was unmistakable. The writing. It could have been written in haste or in distress, but there was no way he would take his own spidery penmanship for anyone else's.

Severus felt his heart jump up and beat somewhere in his throat for a second and then sink low. He was suddenly cold and hot at the same time.

_Where am I?_

Only three words and the world of meanings behind them. Severus didn't like a single one of these meanings. He instantly felt helpless and insecure and longed for the safe confines of his home with a ferocity that he hadn't experienced since those first few months after he had been released from St. Mungo's.

For a painful second, he considered Apparating home right then and there, his mind reeling with various what-to-dos. And this was when the door of the small cottage opened.

Severus was faced with a very excited Hermione Granger. He instinctively hid the note behind his back, and only then did his brain catch up, and he remembered that she wouldn't have seen it anyway, but the gesture itself would probably be noticed. Which was exactly what happened. Shit.

"Professor? I wasn't expecting you so early, but... What's that behind your back?"

"Nothing of interest to you," Severus barked none too friendly.

"I'm trying to help you here, and if it's anything I need to be aware of, then—"

"You're trying to help me because my ordeal is your fault entirely."

"And you're here at seven in the morning not because you're so put upon, but because your misery does so love company. So quit making me feel guilty; I already am, and there's no use piling it up."

He had to give it to her: reducing her to tears with a few well-appointed jabs was no longer an easy sport. He liked that.

Severus gritted his teeth and pushed inside right past her.

"Do come in and make yourself at home," she said, folding her arms across her chest as he plumped for the armchair by the empty hearth.

"Are you Floo-connected?" Snape asked _a propos_ of nothing.

"Not exactly. I have an off-limits route to Headmistress McGonagall's office, and that's it."

"Playing a hermit all by yourself here?" He gave the small sitting-room a once-over, noticing the books neatly stored in a rack, notes and bookmarks sticking out of them merrily. She'd obviously been busy.

"That's really none of your business." She bristled.

Interesting. Somehow, it almost felt like it was, but Severus decided to let it pass for the time being.

"To answer your _demand_, in my hand there's a curious note. Have you heard of Signs of Contact?"

"Yes, I know what they are. But I don't see anything."

"You shouldn't. You aren't a Necromancer, after all."

He must have said it with a great bit of haughtiness, because she pressed her lips together, and in her eyes, something like slight envy jabbed at him.

"Don't covet these powers, Miss Granger. They aren't of any great use," he said in a reconciliatory tone.

She took him up on his silent offer of peace gladly and nodded.

"Who's it from?" she asked, sitting down in a chair in front of him.

"From me," he said simply. "It says 'where am I?', and I must say, these are the most ominous three words I've read in a long while."

"You could have told me right away." She sounded pouty.

"I would have if you hadn't started plundering me for information right on the doorstep."

Miss Granger gave him a meaningful look, and Severus rolled his eyes.

"Let me see it," he asked suddenly, realizing that as of yet, he hadn't seen the Stone.

"See what?"

"The Stone, of course."

"Oh. Yes, sure." She got up swiftly and ran upstairs on light feet, unnecessarily reminding him how young she still was, as compared to him and his old bones.

* * *

The Stone was oddly pleasant to hold. Black, smooth, about the size of a dove's egg. It felt soothing to roll it around in his palm, to finger it. The crack, cause by the Sword of Gryffindor was barely identifiable, and the Deathly Hallow's signs weren't there at all. Severus snorted in surprise.

"Yes, I thought of it, too. The sign. Harry said it was distinct when the stone appeared from the Snitch."

Severus had, of course, already heard the story at least three times by now. Harry Potter dropped it in the forest, couldn't be arsed to go back and look for it, leaving such a valuable and dangerous artifact in the open. Well, not in the open, literally. Maybe leaving it in the open would have been better for him. Who else but guilt-tripping 'scientist' Granger would have had the bright idea of summoning his soul from the realm of the dead?

"This is curious," Snape said in a way of carrying on a conversation, but his mind was off somewhere else.

"I think this may be due to the fact that the Deathly Hallows have fulfilled their destiny. The Wand has been put to rest in Dumbledore's grave, and the cloak..." Her voice went down to a whisper. "Harry says the cloak's started to become a bit frayed at the edges, and sometimes it shows shapes."

"So, you think the stone has also run out its due and is no more a Deathly Hallow?"

"This is the tricky part. If it weren't connected with Death, and I'm positive that the Signs were not there when I found it, shouldn't it have lost its powers as well? And I shouldn't have been able to split—"

"Split?"

It was only a single word, maybe even just a slip of the tongue, but when it hit his ears, he felt like someone had suddenly cast an extremely strong Disillusionment Charm upon him. Cold trickles of ugly understanding spread throughout his body. Split. That's what had happened to him.

Granger stared at him as if he were decomposing right before her eyes.

"No, sir, don't think whatever you're thinking! It's just a guess! An unfortunate word choice! I really and honestly don't know what happened when I turned the stone, and what that being that's now haunting my house is!"

He believed her, of course. But was in no mood whatsoever to put that balm of knowledge onto the sores of her guilty conscience.

Snape got up and pushed the warm, smooth stone into her hand, looking like dignity in misery personified for all he was worth. Without a word, he left the small house. As his feet carried him away from it, he thought he heard the sound of sobbing.

* * *

His second-to-last personal meeting with Voldemort, the one that has simultaneously given him hope and a feeling that his fate was also somehow sealed, was on his mind for the rest of the day. It had been clear then that some kind of resolution to this war had been imminent. Most of his Death Eater brethren hadn't had a single niggling thought that it might have been anything other than a sweeping victory. Except, perhaps, for Lucius, but he had always had an agenda of his own. Maybe Avery suspected it, too, but as usual, he just went with the flow. The rest of them were beyond their wits with excitement. And that was why it was only Severus who had noticed that the Dark Lord had started losing it.

It must have happened just when Granger, the Boy Wonder and the Ginger Pain destroyed the Diadem.

Severus had offered him a Strengthening Solution. Of course, it didn't strengthen anything, but by then, Snape had 'proven' to be so loyal that even water with a fancy name attached to it would have had a placebo effect on the Dark Lord.

"I'm sssplit, Severuss," Voldemort had said to him then, slumped in his throne at Malfoy Manor. "I'm ssplit and I feel them, the partss of me. This hass to end soon."

Severus had bowed and left with a heady mix of horror and hope in his head. The Dark Lord had never been known to be so trustful that he'd show weakness to a lesser being like Snape. It could have been a good thing, but it could also have meant that Snape was already one foot in his coffin in Voldemort's books.

And now this feeling of mingled horror and hope had returned in the form of a single word. Split. He'd finally reached a certain level of clarity about his predicament, but it gave as much hope as it took away.

Split. Part of his soul was wandering somewhere, and he was unwhole, unbalanced. The feeling was horrible, as if there was a steaming hole in his gut, except that he didn't feel the pain of it. The pain, the single unmistakable sign that one was still alive. And Severus didn't feel it.

He had an urge to run outside or at least open every window in the house and let the evening light stream right in, for as long as it was there, and then be replaced by moonbeams.

Suddenly, he was hit with a cold realization. He shouldn't go to sleep. Somehow, somewhere, the most prominent danger lingered behind his closed eyelids.

With a feeling of great resolve, Severus went to brew himself a pot of coffee strong enough to make hair grow on Granger's inquisitive face and planned to stay up all night, sifting the remainder of his library for any scraps and bits of useful information, and then he'd go to Granger first thing in the morning. The profound sense of contentment he'd felt earlier when he stayed at her house was, probably, the last vestige of normalcy in his life.


	8. Chapter 7

It was dark and blurry. Not the clear, crisp dark of a moonless night, but as if its pitch blackness with occasional bright spots of stars was dipped into a bit of white and brown and something else, muddy and thick, resulting altogether in gray, dirty muck all around. This muck was dominating the world. There was another thing that was positively odd. The trees outside were but a vague shape, and not a single leaf moved. The treeline was faintly familiar, but not something he recognized. There was also a large body of water nearby, seashore, probably; somehow, Severus was sure of it. However, he couldn't smell the salt in the air. On the contrary, if he breathed, the air tasted like dust and ashes. And there was silence. So total and stifling that for a moment, he'd thought he'd gone deaf. He couldn't even hear or feel the blood beating in his ears.

Severus wished he could panic. Panic, run, scream, emote the hell out of himself, but somehow he simply didn't have enough emotional substance in him. Or any other kind of substance for that matter.

It must be a dream, but how to wake up if there's no fear or any incentive to do so?

He tried to remember how long he had been aware of the place he was in, but couldn't. There was not even enough despair in him to act and break out of whatever limbo he was in.

There was a stack of paper on something that resembled a desk nearby. Suddenly, Severus's entire mind narrowed down to a single need to run to it and write 'help', like it was the last straw to grab at. But there was nothing to write with.

And the scariest part was that he was pretty sure that there was no time. At least not in the sense he was used to. So, eons could have passed and could yet pass, and he would have no reckoning of them. The scariest part. If only there was fear in him to be scared.

* * *

The sound of wings and infuriated screeching, faint and muffled, as if reaching to him through a very deep sleep, made him turn his head from the stack of paper he had been staring at for the last... Merlin knew how many hours. Or years.

The sound was becoming louder, filling his ears, filling this dreadful place with life, and then the murky gray fog of it started to thin, and feathers, feathers fell from above.

He woke up to sniffling and something cool being pressed to his forehead.

"...Merlin... alive! ...Thought you were... sorry..."

The words of whoever was attending to him were scattered, and half of them didn't even reach his addled brain, but the world started sharpening out of the blur. First, the ceiling. To his unadulterated joy, it was his own. Then, racks of books, his books. A large, haughty barn owl, whom he recognized to be Hermes, Avery's pest of a bird which Snape somehow was very much fond of. Then, Avery himself, standing by the window and hiding his worry behind a smirk and an attempt at being decorative. And finally, Granger, sitting beside him, crying what looked like tears of joy and pressing a cool towel to his forehead. For some reason, he couldn't find it in himself to act like it was totally unwelcome, so he relaxed and enjoyed being fussed over .

"What happened?" Severus croaked when he felt like he could speak and not pass out from the effort.

"We're not sure, but I have an idea. You need to rest, sir," Granger answered.

"No! I don't... want to sleep." The very idea of possibly going back to that state horrified him.

"I didn't think so. That's why you're pumped full of Invigorating Draughts, isn't it? And we're moving you to my house. I have a reason to think it's safer for you there."

So she had guessed it, too. Clever girl.

* * *

Two hours later saw Snape seated comfortably in an armchair, appropriately transfigured for comfort, in Granger's house and sipping a cup of coffee with a slight tang of yet another reviving something and pondering the fact that he'd been 'out' for almost four days.

"Don't thank me, thank Mr. Avery's owl," Granger said when he decided that her efforts were worthy of a thank you. "I found you asleep in your chair some twelve hours ago, and you looked extremely uncomfortable. I tried to wake you up to no avail, so I went to Mr. Avery for help. He brought Hermes. See, animals, birds in particular, can walk the borders of the worlds. We wrote you a letter, and Hermes tried to deliver it. It was his wings beating against the window that woke you up."

"You seem to have it all figured out," Snape retorted crankily. He hated not being the one doing all the lecturing and enlightening. And it was happening to him more often than he cared to allow.

"Why, I think, yes."

Damned Gryffindor pride.

"How did you find my house in the first place? I don't remember extending an invitation or sharing my whereabouts with you. Or with you, for that matter," he added, transferring a searing look from Granger to Nigel Avery, who had followed them to her house.

"I asked Luna. Luna Lovegood. If you've ever used the Owl Postal service, even under an assumed name, which I'm sure you have, judging by the number of periodicals you brought to me, your address is in their registry. It only took me one hour to find Vunessa Spree, who is subscribed to such a number of Potions periodicals that it was a sure guess. Nice anagram, too."

Severus narrowed his eyes, but couldn't help admiring her resourcefulness.

"So, I came to your house when I... when you didn't show up for two days, though by all intents and purposes, you should have, the very next morning. At first, I thought you were offended, but—"

"I wasn't." Somehow, it was important for him at the moment that she knew it.

"Ok, you weren't, but I wasn't sure, so I gave you time to... mull it over, whatever it was."

"It wasn't 'whatever'. I am, indeed, split. Like Voldemort and his Horcruxes were. Except that part of my soul is strolling somewhere around your house."

"Yes, that, too. I eventually came to the same conclusion later that day," Granger said, and then jumped up from her place and paced. Snape had spent enough time with her to know that it meant she was agitated and excited. She must have found out something good.

"Brilliant deduction," Snape noticed, by way of keeping the conversation ball rolling.

"Thank you," she said without a single hint of noticing his sarcasm, too immersed in her own train of thought. "But then I noticed something else. Actually, I think, somewhere, in the back of my mind, I'd noticed it some time ago, but was always distracted and didn't focus on it and... Anyway. Your _alter ego_ has a certain pattern of appearance."

That certainly got Snape's attention. He even sat up slightly up from his reclining position. He also noticed that Avery, who'd kept silent all this time, changed his stance slightly.

"I always saw _him_ in the evening hours. At first, I thought it was just the way of ghosts."

"You have obviously seen too many ghost films, then. Common ghosts don't have any time-of-day-related limitations," Snape said with a slight note of superiority in his voice.

"I said, 'at first'," Granger said, looking at him like he was a petulant child. "So, there was a pattern. Evenings only, and never later than eight or nine in the morning. Sometimes, over the last few weeks, an hour or two during the day. And then it dawned on me. He shows up when you're asleep."

She paused, as if evaluating the effect her words had produced. Snape tried really hard to act unfazed, ever the true Slytherin; Avery shifted curious eyes from Granger to him, trying to gauge their reactions first and then show his.

"And I assume he has been showing up here with increasing frequency and length of stays lately?" Snape asked finally.

"Yes. And over the last few days, he stayed here all the time. It is very disconcerting. I think he's becoming stronger, if that is even the right word to use."

Snape had a dreadful feeling that the word was exactly correct.

"I wish I could see how he looks," he said thoughtfully.

"No, you don't," Avery answered him, finally breaking his silence.

"Why is that?" Severus asked with caution.

"He is you... and not you at the same time," Granger answered. "It's hard to explain. But if you want, I'll give you a Pensieve piece later."

"I do," he said and had a strong desire to look away.

"It also seems that when you two are in close proximity, you feel much better. That's why Mr. Avery and I decided to bring you here."

"How very noble of you," Snape said sourly. Suddenly, the notion of living with Granger swelled inside his brain and took over it for a second, flashing sides of it he hadn't thought about. He'd never interacted with her in any role other than a teacher or, during the last few days, a colleague of sorts, and the thought of Hermione Granger in domestic environment was... strange, to say the least. What were her sleeping habits? Did she cook? Sing in the shower? Was she messy and bustling? Any Molly Weasley influence there? Not judging by her house, but who knew.

Chewing on all of these unexpected questions, Severus came to the conclusion that he was actually quite excited.


	9. Chapter 8

Nigel Avery left very soon, promising to have a look at whatever sources he had on Necromancy and stop by in the next few days. His owl, Hermes, who'd followed his master to Granger's house, was not so eager to part ways with it, being stuffed full of bacon strips and petted and cooed over for saving Snape's life.

Granger tactfully set Severus up with the task of going through the notes she'd made over the last few days, which gave him a semblance of being busy, and then, after an evening of doing Merlin knew what, insisted that she must watch him sleep. Which, in turn, proved to be the best way to keep him _from_ sleeping. For her vigil, Granger placed herself in a chair, not in his bedroom, out of some twisted sense of decency, but in the hall, but with the door open so that she could see him and read. Somehow, the sight of her balled up in the chair didn't work exactly like a lullaby for Snape.

By four in the morning, when the remote cockcrows started filling the night air, Severus stomped out of his room and went downstairs, waking Granger from what looked to be like sleeping in a very uncomfortable position.

"If you insist on helping me, the best way to do so is to just let me be," he barked at her when she trotted after him upon waking, a disgustingly concerned look upon her face.

"But if you fall asleep, he might take over you, and you might not wake up again! I know wizards can stay awake for up to a week or even longer, and I'm sure we will find a solution by then!"

Severus eyed her with all the scepticism he was able to put into his look.

"Granger. Let me be. Staying here is bad enough."

"Oh, for Merlin's sake, don't make it look like you're being forced to suffer through it." One of her hands balled at her cocked hip with a challenge.

"I am."

It was laden and smothered with all sorts of meaning.

She suddenly straightened up, and the tip of her pert nose reddened. And then he was left alone in the kitchen to brew his coffee in silence.

* * *

After that first night, she did indeed let him be, though Severus often noticed that she watched him. At times, she would peer up from her work, thinking she was being discreet, most certainly, or knocked on his room's door under some idiotic pretense or other if he stayed there quietly long enough. Would he mind looking at her Peace Peas? They look like they'd been hit with some kind of malevolent dew. Of course, he wouldn't. Even though he was pretty sure that those Peace Peas had been growing wild for the last couple of years.

Severus didn't mind because other than that, Granger proved to be a rather bearable house-mate. She didn't fuss; she pried with moderation. She didn't demonstrate any ugly habits; her cooking was edible, and she let him take over the kitchen if he felt like it. She was an unexpectedly good conversationalist, interested and eager, and Severus often found that her views were fresh, and her ways of thinking were curious. He liked listening to her talk about various subjects, despite the fact that she still had that tendency to wedge in an occasional undigested 'book opinion' here and there. Besides, the strange sense of contentment that he had felt the first few times he'd been in her house returned, and having experienced it for a couple of days, Severus mellowed.

When, around day three, they had established a certain routine, he was so annoyingly comfortable, it was taking constant reminding to stay alert and reasonably unfriendly.

The search for clues didn't move from its 'futile' status. They'd sifted through all the books, journals and papers they had at least twice to the point where he could reproduce random text bits by heart, and his eye lost its sharpness.

By the end of day four, another problem arose.

The exhaustion was sudden. It just settled onto his shoulders after a dinner of a surprisingly good roast and potatoes, urging him to take a horizontal position as soon as possible. His eyelids drooped, and neither coffee nor Sleep-be-gones, which they had been brewing on industrial scale, helped.

Granger, of course, had noticed and tried to alternately engage him in an insipid conversation or make him do another one of her idiotic chores which were supposed to keep him awake.

After he had finished writing down a recipe for a rather obscure and very seldom used potion, which, however, had enough ingredients and tricky instructions to keep him going for almost forty minutes, he watched her stuff it away without giving it a second look and storm off upstairs to the tiny room which was simultaneously her library, laboratory and workshop.

He grabbed yet another book with biographies of famous Necromancers and slumped in a chair, hoping to all the deities that numbing, powerless anger would keep him awake.

The pages blurred right before his eyes, letters jumping onto each other and forming nonsensical words. He fought sleep valiantly, slapping his own cheeks and rubbing his eyes, but as soon as he let himself hold still and concentrate on the galloping letters he was sound asleep and blissfully snoring.

He woke up because something cold and wet was trickling down his neck and face, as if he was being touched and prodded at by a tentacle of some vile invertebrate. Severus jumped, trying to shake the damn thing off, and woke up to find Granger kneeling beside him with a wet towel, her eyes shining with worry and tears.

"What the hell are you doing?" Severus demanded, his voice parched after sleeping.

"Oh, God, thank you," she said and hugged his torso, stuffing her mane of hair right under his nose. Severus was taken aback by such an emotional display, but then he remembered that he had just fallen asleep. She was upset that he might go back to that place again.

It was actually a very touching novelty that someone, even if that someone was his former second-to-most-annoying student, would find the possibility of his demise a thought worthy of tears. Snape held very still so that she wouldn't think he was scandalized by such a feat.

Besides, her hair gave off a smell that was absolutely not unpleasant for his big, picky nose.

All too soon, she let go of him and straightened herself.

"Sorry I hugged you this way, sir. I wasn't planning on climbing on your lap."

"Good, good, because my lap wasn't exactly waiting impatiently for you to do so," Snape said. He sounded a little hoarse and very unconvincing.

"How long have you been—"

"Oh, you woke right away. I'm thinking that maybe it's safe for you to doze off here for a little while. Your staying here must be enough for him not to..." she trailed off.

"Him?"

"I saw him, downstairs. I was so scared. He was smiling at me, and it was..." She paused and looked away.

"Show me," he asked suddenly, and after a moment of thought added barely above whisper, "Please."

"I... uh... I don't have a Pensieve. Even one of those portable ones George sells with his Victory set."

Not wanting to travel down memory lane, Miss Granger? Well, it was understandable.

"I can see it right in your mind. It won't hurt, if you're willing, and I'll be careful not to pry. And I will generally be careful," he said cautiously and flicked a quick look at her to gauge her reaction.

For a moment, she considered. The working of the gears in her head reflected on her face like it was a flashing neon sign. To trust him and pave a few more bricks in the road towards friendship? But what if he... To say 'no' and deal with his being unreasonably touchy?

"Oh please, I can give you a wand oath that I won't try and swindle you right out of your dirty little secrets."

And that had her miraculously relaxed.

"That won't be necessary," she said easily. "I'll just ask you to stop if I... ask you to."

"Of course."

He stood up and only then realized that he was slightly rested. She balked.

"I'll hold your face. It's easier this way," he said almost apologetically and felt strangely ashamed, as if saying this wasn't really necessary.

She stood still, and Severus carefully laid his palms on her cheeks. Her skin was cool and pleasantly lively, in a way which he couldn't have described better than, simply, 'fresh'. Severus took an unabashed moment to look. She'd braided her hair, since it was near bedtime, and it occurred to him that her plaits looked like two inappropriately pretty bookends, holding all that serious stuff inside her head. The visual of Granger's head as a rack of books with two tails of hair on the sides made him smile.

"Something funny?" she asked, knitting her eyebrows.

"No. Just a thought. If you would look at me and think of my _alter ego_ and today's encounter, please."

She nodded and mouthed 'now' when she was ready.

Snape dived in.

Miss Granger's mind was a jumble. How she managed to live in such a mental state and stay sane was beyond him. He didn't need to even look around much to get the full scope of Hermione Granger. Though she was dutifully playing her encounter with him at the front of her mind, when he was gathering his wits to start watching it, he was practically stuffed with what could only be tagged as 'too much information.' Apart from thinking about his 'ghost', she was also trying very hard not to think that she'd found him more interesting and imposing than she'd ever thought she would. She was also already mentally slapping herself for letting him into her thoughts. "Don't let your mouth say spells your hand can't cast, you cow," flashed red before his eyes. There was a remote underlying bitterness, which acted like an afterthought to every single mental pattern in her, but he couldn't track it without actually _tracking_ it.

When Severus thought that hesitating longer might be a case of a crushingly bad judgment on both their sides, he focused on what she'd been playing for him.

And then he saw _him_.

It was, indeed, a remarkably eerie sight.

Granger's agitation and averted eyes, and Avery's confused silence, immediately became logical and acceptable.

Once, Snape had seen Nott Senior, Polyjuiced as himself. It was uncomfortable to watch his own body and face without its customary gestures and expressions. Nott's bawdy haughtiness made him look uglier, but if anything, appealing in the impudent way of the confident.

This was different.

This was like seeing something once familiar, but long forgotten. The shape that passed before his and Granger's eyes, was definitely him. And yet, there was an ease about his motion that material Snape had never had. And he smiled, in a way that made his face, that at best looked like it was hewn out of old wood by a hapless beaver, light up. Well, at least that explained the miraculous hints of attraction which he'd sensed in Granger's mind. For a long, secret moment, Severus was quite taken with the idea that something like this could actually be part of him.

And then that other Snape started talking. He kept saying something, but any sound was snuffed out. The picture was completely mute. The other Snape kept shouting something at Miss Granger, Severus would even say he was begging. Then he saw his alter ego reach out and take something, except that there was nothing visible in his hands. It looked like he could be writing something with an invisible quill on an equally invisible piece of parchment. Severus could sense Miss Granger's leftover awe and sullen amazement at this pantomime.

Then, just as suddenly ashamed of his own romantic mind-babbling, he quickly withdrew from Granger's mind.

Her face was pinched, eyes closed, forehead creased, as if she expected an onslaught of some kind of pain any minute. He thought he didn't allow his thumbs flutter for half-an-inch over her cheeks before taking his hands off her, but they most certainly did it anyway.

"Are you hurt?" he asked, taking a step back and thinking of Minerva and how she always managed to look prim and proper.

She opened her eyes abruptly, as if he'd woken her from some dream. A thick blush crept into her face, making even the tip of her nose red. Snape, in turn, was second-hand embarrassed.

"No, I'm fine," she said hastily.

"I think you are the only soul he's able to see. And I think he doesn't recognize his surroundings. He's trying to contact you, but can't understand that you can't hear him or see his missives," Snape said by way of steering the situation back to neutral ground.

"Yes, I think you're correct," Granger answered docilely, still flushing pink. Then she gave him an exaggeratedly bright smile and ran out of the library-workshop-lab

* * *

After that, Severus found that he was able to sleep a few minutes here and an odd hour there. He almost never managed to wake up by himself, but neither did he ever find himself in that strange gray limbo again.

His situation didn't seem to worsen, but he was practically place-bound to Granger's house and a couple of dozen acres around it. Once, he tried walking to test the limits of his invisible cell. About half-a-mile from the house, he doubled over in intense pain. He was able to walk about twenty more steps before collapsing, only to be found later by an extremely angry Granger, who threatened to put a tracking charm on his arse if he ever were to experiment with his life like that again. Severus snapped at her, mentioning her own experiments with his life, and they didn't talk for a day.

Their little clashes, his feeling imprisoned, and, mostly, the lack of absolutely any progress in remedying his situation started wearing on them by the end of week two.

They had a fight one evening over something so ridiculously trifling that Severus couldn't even remember the next morning who and what had started it. Granger had locked herself in the library for the night, and he was thus punished by a bookless night and an unbreakable alarm charm on the entire house, which would notify her should he fall asleep.

When she came down for breakfast, she looked a fright. The right side of her face was creased from falling asleep over a book, and her hair looked like there was no treatment in the entire world to wrestle it back to anything remotely hair-like.

He handed her a reconciliatory cup of coffee, which, as they both had agreed, he brewed better and should be in charge of.

"No rest for the wicked?"

"Actually, yes. We can afford a bit of rest. Just today, in the morning. Because big things are queuing to get done."

"Have you found something?" He sounded way more hopeful and enthused than he'd intended to.

"I did."

Severus reclined in the chair and prepared to listen.

Her find was but a small one, and yet, it was like a tiny little thread of hope leading to a possible clew of useful information which they could untangle. His own books had proved to be useless. It was just a small footnote in her edition of _The Tales of Beedle the Bard_. She'd said Dumbledore had bequeathed it to her in his will. That clever bastard. Could he have foreseen this? No, probably not, but the most profound gut feeling Severus had ever seen in a wizard had made him choose this particular edition, one of the unpopular ones, with a rare, if obscure and mostly useless, commentary.

The footnote referred to the phrase in the tale of the Peverell brothers where Ignotus Peverell was said to ask for power over Death in an attempt to further humiliate him. It simply gave a line and a page number in a grimoire that Severus hadn't ever heard of.

And Hermione Granger believed that it could give more insight into the nature of their problem.

"Death wouldn't stand to be humiliated like that without humiliating him back, right? Wouldn't it just be like It to give a stone a hidden quality so that it could also do something to the living?" she argued.

"Such evil verisimilitude these tales have. Miss Granger, do you really believe they aren't just an allegory, a ball of myths hiding the fact that the so called Deathly Hallows were crafted by the Peverell brothers, whose skill was so great that they weren't able to wield it right, and it turned against them eventually?"

"That is a common scientific approach to the issue; I'm aware of it. All right, let's phrase it differently. Consider it my attempt to verify the dual nature of the stone."

She did have logic. Severus liked that, too. However, letting her have her way so easily wasn't something he wanted to do just yet.

"Maybe... Maybe not. In any case, your guess is a dead end. I can't recognize the name of the aforementioned grimoire, and trust me when I say I have held, read and studied every single grimoire in Britain and France."

Her face lit up with a triumphant glow Severus didn't like.

"I'm sure that is not the case, sir, with all due respect."

It was now Severus's turn to fold his hands across his chest.

"How intriguing. Enlighten me."

"I've already checked with Hogwarts library and the one in the Most Ancient house of Black's. It's not there. But I have high hopes about one more place."

"Do tell."

"Malfoy Manor. I did once... work for the Department of mysteries, and I know for a fact that Lucius Malfoy owns the biggest collection of grimoires and Dark Arts texts in the country."

Severus jumped up, outraged.

"You are insane!"

She gave him an arched brow. The move was so like him that it effectively shut him up for a minute. He sat down and huffed, waiting for her to elaborate.

"I could shut up and try to talk you into it nicely, but since we don't have all eternity, I'll just say that while you were _playing a hermit all by yourself_ for ten years, lots of things changed."

Severus flinched inside at how his own words had been turned against him. The fact that she was right also wasn't about to soften the blow. He was hopelessly out of date with life. Probably had been for years prior to his 'demise'.

"So, are you saying Lucius is going to let you walk into his house and not show you directly into his dungeon cellar?"

"His library is on the second floor," she snipped.

"Has it occurred to you that I have lived without seeing anyone from my former life for ten years, and I have already disclosed myself to three people in the course of as many months, and now you want me to add Lucius to that figure? Lucius Malfoy?"

"Yes, you have, for ten years, blah-blah. And what kind of life was that? Glamours, loneliness, paranoia? " She balled her hands and looked at him indignantly.

Snape narrowed his eyes.

"May I add peace, freedom and safety to your list, Miss Granger," he hissed. "It may not have been much of a life, but it belonged to me. All of it. It was all _my own_."

Severus stormed out of the room and out of the house. He walked as far as he could in his cozy prison. The edge of his current world happened to be a high bank of a small cove. A few sparse trees overlooked the crashing waves below, but he could only walk as far as the one closest to the house. A very ironic vantage point. The hill kept rolling slightly up, and if he could only take a few more steps forward, he'd be able to enjoy the comforting sight of the bay, but all that was available to him was sitting under a tree and listening to the waves whisper or rock at the shore, depending on the weather.

He sat there all day. When the nip in the evening air became distinct, one Hermione Granger, his guard, prisoner and keeper, came to retrieve him.

"You know what my biggest mistake has always been?" She sat, sitting down, facing away from Snape. "I always make assumptions for other people. Everyone. I thought my parents would be safer and happier if I kept them away from the squabbles of the wizarding world. Take their memories, give them new identities, ship them off to Australia. Now they both live with huge holes in their minds, unable to connect the two parts of their lives, and I'm paying for their therapy. I assumed that after the war, I could change things. Change many things. I felt like I had the energy and knowledge to do so. But I only ended up doing tedious paperwork which changed nothing. And no one really wanted any changes. So I left my office job to do occasional freelance work. Curse-breaking for the poor. Some research for George. Errands for McGonagall. They're all great friends, but when it comes to work, there's wheat and there's chaff. And I am a troublesome employee, so all they can offer me are random jobs here and there. Then I assumed Ron would be better off being an Auror and pursuing a career in the Ministry, so I nagged and I pressured him—be more active, Ron, don't be such a flobberworm, Ron, do this, Ron, do that, Ron. And all he really wanted was a quiet life in a quiet place. He has it now. With Romilda Vane. And I'm here."

If Severus had been a horse, he'd have pricked up his ears and taken an open-mouthed drag of air, as if something curious and maybe even dangerous were moving his way. He wasn't a horse, but he still found himself very much interested in the foibles of Hermione Granger. She cast a quick look his way just to make sure he was listening. He hoped his stance showed rather credibly that he was, and eagerly so.

"I didn't... I don't make any assumptions about your life. Previous or pre-previous. But I do think that you deserve what life you want... You deserve to have it back and do with it what you will. I'm doing my best to get it back for you."

It wasn't an apology _per se_. But Severus knew better about this kind of apologies. There was no need to top it with a 'sorry'.

"I'm glad you are," he said evenly. "And I could do with a cup of tea."

He got up and offered her his hand. She took it and, once on her feet, took his elbow. He decided to act like it was the most natural thing in the world.

In the morning, she gently pushed the issue of Lucius Malfoy's library back on the table.

"You said you were trying not to make assumptions, but in this case you're making the wrong assumption about Lucius, thinking you can just ask for a rare book and not pique his interest. People can turn themselves around to a certain extent, but it will always be like a certain management technique, imposed on the real character. The core remains the same. And you could also be making a wrong assumption about the expanse of his library. I'm sure much of it was confiscated after Voldemort's fall."

"I'm fully prepared to let Mr. Malfoy in on the issue. He might have unexpected resources. And I'm sure that while lots of things were confiscated, the Ministry only took things Lucius was prepared to part with. And I've heard his library wasn't one of them."

That much was true. Another thing that was true was that they had indeed depleted their own resources. Severus allowed himself a few more hours of sulking and finally consented to Hermione's offer of owling Malfoy about the needed grimoire. Which she did as soon as his mouth had closed after giving his permission.

* * *

Severus was very sure that Miss Granger had worded her request in the most neutral way possible and had hinted at nothing about why she would need such a tome.

And yet, he wasn't one bit surprised, when, come morning, Severus looked out the window, nursing a cup of coffee, and saw Lucius Malfoy, striding towards the house and obviously enjoying the crisp, pleasant air of the seashore.

He soared away from the window, almost knocking Granger over in the process.

"What is it?" she asked, regaining her balance.

"You have guests," Snape answered acidly and gave her an unpleasant 'I told you so' smile.

"_We_ have guests," she retorted, and poked her finger in his chest. "Don't even think of weaselling out of it."

When Severus was about to let something drop that would cause another sulking and brooding event, there was a knock on the door.

He was going to flit upstairs and put up a few muffling and distracting and concealing charms, but then it occurred to him that it would all take more than a few seconds, and that most of those charms, though created to hide, were rather showy and loud when cast. Besides, numerous paraphernalia strewn about the house, such as his famous black teaching cloak, the few things brought over from his house and so forth, were a dead giveaway.

There was no point in hiding.

"Let me do the talking," he whispered harshly into Granger's ear.

Severus squared his shoulders and set his mouth just in time because Granger was already opening the door.


	10. Chapter 9

On the other hand, his presence in the hall, when Granger opened the door to Lucius's arrogant and flashy form, proved to be an advantage.

It baffled Lucius enough to make him lose some of that flair. For a few precious moments, which Severus swore to Pensieve and look at whenever his ego would suffer especially heavy blows, Lucius stood there, gaping like a fish in the most undignified way.

Snape's bliss lasted but a few seconds, and then Malfoy Senior composed himself enough to speak.

"It was highly unusual to receive a request for help from you, Miss Granger. I have told you on numerous occasions that my library is at your avail, knowing your keenness for books, and though you're only taking me up on my offer now, I was so glad you did that I decided to drop by with this curious tome myself and inquire if there was anything else I could help you with. I'm quite a connoisseur when it comes to grimoires."

As Lucius spoke, he threw covert glances at Snape, as if he were probing deep waters and looking out for dangerous shoals.

"How very pleasant to find you... well and whole, Severus," he added when he was finished with his tirade.

Snape rolled his eyes, but spared a fleeting thought for the whys of Lucius offering Granger access to his library in such an affable manner. Some things never changed, and Lucius was a shark who could swim in any water: salt, fresh, muddy—it didn't matter.

"Doesn't your coming here flaunt the fastidious rules of your... peers?" Snape asked with mock disdain.

"But Miss Granger is my peer, Severus, my friend. You've been hiding away for too long. Things change," Lucius said with a smile and went on to squeeze Snape's shoulders amiably. Severus returned the gesture not entirely without sincerity.

When the meet-and-greet stage was over, seats and tea offered and taken, Lucius clapped his hands together with a rather gleeful expression .

"So, instead of one mystery here, I actually find two. Which one will I be updated on first?"

"The mystery is actually one and the same," Snape said, and gave a very abbreviated overview of his predicament, editing a few things out as he went and adding a few details, such as the supposed breaking of the Stone once it was turned.

Lucius, flaunty peacock though he was, had a keen mind, and even his condescending, seemingly supercilious persona was a carefully calculated and brilliantly worn mask.

"I don't see, Miss Granger, how this book may be of any help. Personally, I don't find if of any scientific value. It's one of those Victorian scrying manuals. You know, shewstones, tea leaves, 'On Hallow's Eve look in the glass, your future husband's face will pass' type of book."

"I believe it may be useful, Mr. Malfoy," Hermione said demurely. "If you could lend it to me for a couple of days, I would be most obliged."

Severus rolled his eyes once again. One never used words like 'obliged' with Lucius Malfoy, who was always known to take a Galleon when given a Knut.

"You can come and work for me any time. That would make _me_ obliged." Lucius beamed. Hermione excused herself to make more tea, incidentally grabbing the grimoire to take with her, and Snape used the moment to catch up.

"So, since when have you been a great lover of Muggle-born witches?"

"Don't give me the what for, Severus," Malfoy said with a smile and a dismissive wave of the hand.

"I'm not. Just curious as to when you had a magical attitude replacement. Would you like me to check whether you're Imperiused? Miss Granger is capable of many things." Severus's voice dripped with mock concern.

"Pfft. You're sense of humour is still quirky at best, Severus. How glad I am that some things, in fact, do not change. To answer your question, no, I have not had any replacements. I've always liked what does me and my family good and despised what is capable of harming me. I side with the strong. Muggle-borns are a force now, and Miss Granger is a force in herself. It's that simple."

Severus huffed. There was truth in what Lucius was trying to get across. Lucius's only true loyalty was, and had always been, to himself. He had joined the Dark Lord because of the prospects it offered, and he had gained a lot. He'd lost a lot, too, but he'd managed to stay afloat and thrive again, eventually. That much was obvious.

"You really have no principles, Mr. Malfoy!" Hermione's exasperated shout reached over from the small kitchen.

"No, I don't, my dear, and I advise you to get rid of the ones you have. Be flexible and adapt. How hard is liking something that is good for you? Not hard at all."

Severus heard a huff not entirely unlike his own coming from the kitchen and lowered his voice to a whisper.

"I dare to presume Miss Granger still finds it hard to like the fact that she was tortured in your home. Solitude does not counter reading newspapers."

Lucius pressed his lips together in distaste.

"Bella was mad. I can't be held responsible for the doings of others."

"Even if those doings took place under your own roof?" Snape asked with a very unkind lopsided sneer.

"I'm willing to make recompense. Unfortunately, Miss Granger isn't taking me up on my job offer."

That last bit was said loud enough for the Miss in question to hear it.

She came out, levitating three cups of tea, obviously from her better set, alongside a tray of cheap meringues from the nearest bakery, which were supposed to make an impression, but dampened it slightly.

Lucius took his cup and took a perfunctory sip, ignoring the meringues.

His face had suddenly become very serious, and the façade of a faddish, slightly eccentric aristocrat was dropped altogether.

"Whatever you are intending to do with your," he nodded his imperial chin towards Snape, "situation, I want in."

"Why?" Snape and Miss Granger asked almost in total unison.

"Consider me bored."

"And why should we let you in?" Snape asked, feeling the wave of anger rise. Damn the grimoire. They could have looked elsewhere.

"Because I've got more information that may be helpful to you." Lucius eyed Snape like a player who had just pulled out a trump card when least expected, and Miss Granger sat suspiciously quiet, hiding behind her cup.

"What's in it for you, really?" Snape cut to the chase.

"I want a message delivered." Lucius's voice suddenly changed cadence.

The kind of message he was referring to didn't need to be explained to either Snape or Miss Granger for some reason, and both of them, clearly understanding the meaning, swallowed uneasily.

"It only works the other way around."

"It doesn't, or you will be unsuccessful in bringing your other half over from the realm of the dead," Lucius said in a tone which didn't bear any arguments.

"Deal," Granger said suddenly and shot up with a hand stretched out. Snape opened his mouth for a long diatribe about everything he thought of her making decisions for him when he was the one with the necromantic abilities here, but clapped it shut, seeing the strange glint in her eyes.

* * *

Lucius left soon after he had secured his 'deal' with Granger and insisted on sending his Eagle Owl to Granger's house the next morning so that he could be updated on their quest.

His 'useful information' was, just as Severus had expected, a vague piece of backroom Death Eater gossip, but Granger considered it valuable. Lucius clearly didn't know the full extent or meaning of the few words he'd once overheard, but his acute sense for sniffing out all the important things was true, as always, when it had told him that this little nugget would be useful.

It appeared that Voldemort had thought there was a way to reverse his Horcrux spell and gather what was left of his soul into something solid. All that had been needed was a willing and fully devoted soul. He'd had such a soul in Bellatrix and, apparently, had let her in on some of his plan. Unfortunately, poor old Bella's mind had already been fragile after all those years in Azkaban, and she'd taken a few raps to the head afterwards, so she couldn't resist boasting about such a display of trust from her master to her sister. And Narcissa had told Lucius everything.

So, the Dark Lord had, at some point, guessed that his Horcruxes were being hunted down and decided to gather what was left of him. And he had known how to do it. At least, this was what Granger thought Lucius's piece meant. Snape was slightly more sceptical. As for her 'deal' with Lucius, he was furious.

"Tell me, Miss Granger. Why is your mouth saying spells your wand can't cast?" Snape asked her, using the saying he'd picked up from her very own mind as soon as the door had closed behind their visitor.

"I'll find the way. I have a feeling we really need that book and that we're moving in the right direction."

She stuck her chin up and grabbed the grimoire.

"Let's see what's in here," she said in a tone that was more commanding than Severus liked.

The referred page was in a chapter dedicated to consorting with spirits and, apart from various bits of gibberish and descriptions of Divination devices, contained a verse in French obviously copied from some other, perhaps earlier, source and signed by _La Garce de Goliath_

Neither Severus nor Granger were very fluent in French, but with the help of a Muggle dictionary, which she extricated from one of the bookshelves, and a few translation spells, they'd put together something of a sensible text.

_Even the keenest of mind, who attempt to cheat Death, shall be cheated, for Death is a two-way_ the next word was indecipherable, but Hermione thought it was 'act'. _When something goes, another thing comes in. Find what has come, and you shall return what is gone._

Miss Granger held the parchment with the written text with slightly shaking hands, and her eyes flittered like two small embers.

"But this is brilliant!" she squealed, after she'd read the text at least a dozen times. "See how Ignotus Peverell wanted to cheat death and lost his life instead, eventually, and the stone is a two-way act because something can't be brought back without something else going and vice-versa!"

"I don't see how this is any great discovery. I don't see how someone who calls herself _the bitch of Goliath_ could possess the knowledge that could change an entire branch of magical science?" Snape folded his arms on his chest and viewed the ecstatic woman in front of him from underneath his furrowed brows.

"But it's obvious! When I turned the stone, something went. That other you that dwells in my house. But something has come in, too. We have to find it and then exchange the two with the help of whatever Lucius meant about that willing devoted soul."

The last part made her flush painfully red, and Severus discovered that he was gentleman enough not to grate her about why on earth did she think she was that soul. He filed it away for future use and sighed.

"Do you realize that it's about as precise an instruction as saying, 'Here's your aconite, and look, the Moon's belly is almost round, now, get started' to a first year equivalent of Longbottom and expect him to brew Wolfsbane by midnight?"

"That is what research is for."

How could Snape, ever the enthused scientist, argue with that?

The night was passed in a hushed thrill of the new discovery, in looking at all the books and notes with a new eye, and the sunrise crept up on them unexpectedly, pouring warm pink light into the grey, predawn twilight of the library.

When the sunlight was bright enough to make the candles useless, Severus sent Granger off to get some rest. Immediately after that, two things happened almost simultaneously.

First, there was Hades, Malfoy's Eagle owl, banging his regal beak on the window pane, and then there was another Sign of Contact, which Severus noticed as he was letting Hades in. This time, it was pressed in a small crack between the boards of the window sash.

Severus let the owl in and grabbed the Sign.

Again that fancy, unmistakable script of Dumbledore's. Severus wondered if the dead could actually see the deeds of the living once again. Alas, there was no knowledge of that.

_You could be a good match. I'm glad he has her. You are safe for now. _

Good Merlin, that old fart was capable of bringing Severus to the smashing things and blasting holes in walls with fireballs stage even from the other side.

Severus sent a mental cry-out to the ether for who or whatever was responsible for Dumbledore's keeping him held on a short leash. That nosy, riddle-speaking bastard.

What in nine circles of Hell did he mean? If that was some kind of a romantic advice from beyond the grave, it was rather unsolicited. And who had who? The most worrying part was, however, the presence of the word safe. If he was safe for now, then any minute he could be in danger?

Severus briefly thought of telling Granger about the note, but decided against it. She'd be getting ideas. Not that it would be entirely unwelcome, if he was completely honest with himself, but the thought of it made Snape shy and uncomfortable in his own skin.

Writing a short note to Lucius about their progress or, to be more precise, the lack thereof, Severus went to the loo. Something told him that it was going to be a long day.


	11. Chapter 10

Apparently, sending Granger (who was notably reluctant) to bed for a few hours of sleep was not a good idea. She woke up bustling with energy as a five-year old on Christmas morning and informed him of her brilliant idea to call up a counsel.

"What?" Severus squawked, dropping his spoon and thanking the deities that he wasn't holding a coffee cup.

"We need to do some brainstorming. We're stuck, even with all this new information. And... I just have a bad feeling that our time is running out." She was worrying her lip with her teeth, and Severus looked at it a minute too long for his own liking.

"Why is that?" he asked blandly, dropping his eyes.

"I don't know, I just...do. I saw him today again, you'd probably dozed off. He was just staring at me like I'm his beacon of sorts. It almost undid me."

"It could undo much greater men than you are, Miss Granger," Severus answered.

For a spare second, he thought she might rush up and hug him, just like that time in the library. It took him another spare second to conclude that he, in fact, wouldn't at all mind if she did.

But she didn't. Severus almost felt bereft.

"So, we are calling a counsel. I took the liberty with Hades and owled everyone. Well, except Lucius. I don't think he's going to be of much use right now."

Snape choked slightly on his coffee.

"Oh, you wouldn't believe what that bird would do for an extra crusty strip of bacon," Miss Granger said, way too cheerily for him to believe her previous encounter had been forgotten.

Snape sighed and pinched the bridge of his substantial nose. By now, he'd already learned that arguing with Granger was futile. If he closed the door in front of her, she'd find her way out through the window.

At lunch, Hermione announced that she'd heard back from everyone and that her 'counsel' would be held next day at noon and that she wasn't going to lift a finger for the rest of the day so that her brain was fresh for new thoughts come morning. She also strongly insisted Snape should follow suit and made good on her intentions soon after, grabbing a book, which, as Severus noticed, had nothing to do with Necromancy, and headed out to the coast.

* * *

Being alone in the house all day by himself felt surprisingly like privation, and when Severus realized it somewhere nearing sundown, he was horrified. He, who had spent his entire grown up life alone and had never even known anything other than that—he'd upped and simply became used to another form of prison. The notion made him hate the tiny house around him, hate his austere, but infinitely cosy little bedroom, the window facing the small, shabby garden, the garden itself.

It was like his chest was constricted. Suddenly, there wasn't enough air, and he all but ran out of the house.

His 'limbo' was so small that, by now, he knew every single blade of grass and every pebble in it. The world outside, once again, seemed huge, just like when he had been a child and was limited to the space round his own house. Luckily, that space had included the Evans's house as well.

And just like that, for the first time in a long while, he thought of Lily.

The most hateful thing about memories was that they had a tendency to fade. It had been so easy to hold on to Lily when Voldemort had been alive, and when danger and death had lurked around every corner. Each time the tidings had been bad for the Order, each time the future had been overcast with Merlin knows what horrors, the memory of Lily, and all the reasons why he _had_ to go on and do everything in his power to keep her blasted child alive, had sprung forth to the surface of his mind with renewed freshness.

But when his life had settled, when the long-awaited peace finally had come, when he no more needed a silver lining in the sea of black clouds to survive, Lily started to fade away. He thought, perhaps, it was natural; it was how time was supposed to cure all wounds and all that optimistic shit Albus liked to preach about. But now, when Severus looked inside himself and understood that the deep well in his soul that had once been Lily's had almost evaporated, he felt bereft. He knew that he loved Lily still, but he couldn't feel it. It was like eating something delicate and spicy with a heavily stuffed nose: knowing how it should taste, but not tasting it.

All too soon, he reached the end of his prison yet again. When he walked, he mostly took the direction of the shore. This way, when he was at his 'cell's' walls, it almost didn't feel like he was forced to stop since his safe space extended almost as far as the sea.

The rustling of leaves disturbed the quiet of the evening, and Severus turned his head towards it. There, a few yards closer to the sea, Granger sat immersed in her book under a slender tree on top of a small hill. Severus felt a sad pang of envy: he could only walk this far and could never actually see the waves because of that hill, but she, his annoying self-appointed saviour, sat right were the view must be perfect and didn't even spare a look at it.

For a moment, Severus felt like disturbing her, breaking the peaceful image—a ridiculous request or a hare-brained idea thrown in would do, anything to make her look less happy, less content—but then another thought popped into his head uninvited.

What if they didn't succeed? It was a very real possibility because though, by now, they had a solid image of his situation, there was still not a single visible path leading out of it.

What if he would have to stay this way? For how long? How long would it last? His alter ego was sucking the life out of him, that much was clear. Dumbledore's 'safe now' sounded only like there was always an 'in danger then' on the other bowl of the scale. And any time, any minute now, a fateful stone could be thrown to downweigh this bowl for good.

Snape shuddered and looked at Granger. The sun had streaked her hair, which had always seemed so dull in the dim light of the house, with ochres, golds and browns. The halo of wispy curling hairs around her head made her look like a little gem in the sunlight. Not of the fancy, flashy kind, however. Something rather modest and warm. Amber, maybe. He thought that if he squinted, he could even see red in it. Lily liked to read outdoors, always with a book. Severus shook his head, shooing the memories into their almost empty well. He looked closer and found that the book he'd originally seen her leaving the house with was cast aside, most probably, unopened, and that she was studiously parsing yet another Necromancy tome.

An unwelcome prick of tenderness wafted through his heart. What if he were to live in this state for a long while? Would she...

His mind suddenly reeled with confusing images of Granger in all her domestic glory. Granger washing dishes, sleeves rolled up to her elbows, puffing on strands of hair to blow them off her face. She'd said magic didn't clean them nearly as well as ordinary soap and water. He'd said she knew kitchen magic not nearly as well as Molly Weasley, but in such an approving way that it made her sizzle with laughter. Granger cooking. Hermione stripping beds of linen. Granger weeding. Hermione pulling her hair up in a bun. Granger escaping the shower in a towel, thinking that a crack in an open door wasn't enough for him to see. The images then shifted, and soon before his mind's eye, Granger was going right back into the shower, peeling off that towel, and water was falling on her skin and hair in rivulets like rain in slow motion, not like that wishy-washy squirt which she called a shower.

Snape caught himself before his mind travelled to much greener pastures of fantasy than a plain old shower and, still unnoticed, walked back with his heart weighed down with a new trouble.


	12. Chapter 11

Next morning dawned bright and clear with the first ground frosts locking the water in the few pools left after the night's rain. Severus slept an hour here and an hour there and finally got up in a royal snit. He stepped outside for a bit of fresh air. The counsel was still a few hours away, and he already hated it. Two small beds of bright-red asters made the tiny house look like a healthy little milkmaid with apple-red cheeks.

Severus scowled, and, consumed by a strong desire to do something _in spite of_ just about everything, walked in the opposite direction from the sea for a change.

The Sign of Contact was flapping in the wind in the thick shrub.

Severus stretched out a hand and then abruptly pulled it away.

What if it was Dumbledore, so unflinchingly omniscient that his very words were a conviction, no matter what? What if he was telling him that his 'safe for now' time had ended? Or that his time had ended altogether.

He looked around, grasping at the sight of Granger's sunlit house, its whitewashed walls and blushing asters. There was life in there.

Severus took a deep breath and grabbed the filmy message.

It was just a few words. Someone named Beau asking to tell another someone named Felicia that she'd been right; it was beautiful where he was now.

In a sudden rush of temper, Snape crumpled the note and threw it away. It immediately dissipated, like they all did, once the message had been passed.

This couldn't be his life. Something had to be done. Severus promised himself to find Felicia as soon as everything was over.

* * *

When he returned, a little before noon, his spirits weren't much higher, and the sound of voices and ragging didn't do much in terms of brightening his disposition.

He opened the door quietly and was met by a sudden silence. He looked around and balled his hands, which were ready to stretch towards Granger and throttle her.

There, in the room stood Longbottom, Nigel, George Weasley, Potter (to his horror), Minerva (to his mixed horror and elation) and the Bloody Baron, the Slytherin ghost.

At least three mouths gaped open, and before he was piled with all sorts of nonsensical talk, Severus cleared his throat loudly.

"Well, if it's not the single motliest company one could gather for counsel, Miss Granger," he said tightly.

And then he was being hugged and squeezed and berated, and he thought that Minerva had even managed to clip him on the back of the head.

"You are one heartless son of a bitch, Severus Snape," she whispered in his ear with affectionate anger and dabbed at her eyes with a red-and-gold-trimmed handkerchief.

George Weasley shook his hand with grudging respect and ruffled his ginger mane.

The Baron stood slightly aside, his transparent face wary.

Harry Potter mostly smiled quietly and, of all those present, looked like he'd changed the least. He was still thin as a rod, hair unkempt, glasses round and sitting slightly unevenly on his nose with one spectacle a little lower than the other. His clothes were good quality, but still ill-fitting.

Severus was astonished at how happy and anchored it made him feel, that knowledge that some things just never changed.

"Glad to see you, sir," Potter said honestly when Severus was finally free of Minerva.

"Aren't you going to give me a mouthful about making you all think I was dead and gone for ten years?" Severus asked simply.

Potter chuckled.

"Nah. I can tell you a few things about wishing to be left alone for good myself."

Snape supposed it was true. He once came across an article in the paper about a reporter filing a suit because he had fallen from a tree near Potter's house, trying to catch the Wizarding World's biggest celebrity on magical film. The arse wanted the Potters tried for sabotaging the tree.

It took everyone quite some time to cope with their initial reactions to Snape's appearance, and when Severus was already feeling anger bubbling inside, Miss Granger saved the day.

"I think we'd better start," she said loudly and pointed at a few comfortable looking chairs, their colour and texture giving out the fact that they had been transfigured out of a few small couch cushions. .

"Most of them arrived earlier, so I have updated everyone on what we have been through," she told Snape.

Everyone took a chair; Snape found himself sitting between Granger and Nigel on the couch.

"As you all know, we are here today because some time ago I found the Resurrection Stone, turned it, thinking, just like all of you were, that Professor Snape was dead, to talk to him. But, the professor was alive, and my actions had drastic consequences. It looks like he's split now," she started bravely, and then paused, taking a deep breath. "We think it's akin to the way Voldemort's soul was shattered into parts for the Horcruxes, but it doesn't seem attached to any inanimate object."

That last bit caused a shiver to run through all those present in the room—with the exception of, perhaps, the Baron.

"So that explains the presence I am feeling in this house," the Baron spoke from his corner.

Silence followed, and Hermione Granger felt obliged to continue.

"Professor Snape also acquired some Necromantic abilities due to the accident, but the split is having a negative effect on him."

"That sounds like you are sticking to the letter of the truth without its spirit, Miss Granger," the Baron chimed in haughtily again. "Snape looks like butter gone rancid and spread too thin on stale bread."

"Thank you for such an assessment, Baron," Granger said acidly. "Who would have expected such colourful food metaphors from someone who hasn't eaten in a few hundred years."

The Baron was nonplussed.

"Where did the brilliant idea of using such an artefact come from anyway?" he asked. It looked like he wasn't the only one with that question as all eyes turned to Granger and not just one set of eyebrows rose up expectantly.

"We aren't here today to discuss Miss Granger's motives." Snape suddenly heard his own voice speak. A stolen glance in her direction revealed a face shining with gratitude. Just as suddenly, Severus realized that he wasn't blaming her any longer. It made him feel inspired. "Miss Granger has given me her explanation, and I found it satisfactory. The question of 'why' is settled between us."

"I, too, think we should focus on how to relieve you of your predicament," Minerva said. Always sticking up for a fellow Gryffindor. "You do indeed look like that butter. No offense, Severus."

"And I don't think we have much time," Nigel said.

Severus startled.

"Why is that?" Potter asked, voicing his own question.

"Why do you think the Horcruxes had to be anchored to objects, Harry?" Miss Granger asked, using her fallback, annoying mentor tone.

"Because otherwise they would be unstable?" Longbottom suggested, and Severus noticed that he almost stuck his hand up as if he were still in school.

"Necromancy is all about teetering on the edge between two worlds," Avery said. "Why do you think we only receive missives from those recently gone? It is an epitome of instability and chaos. It's all about what's in between. Whatever balance Severus has now, it is tenfold more fragile than a house of cards in the wind."

"I have received messages from Dumbledore," Snape noted absentmindedly and only then noticed his slip of a tongue with the plural. Miss Granger was already giving him a questioning look, but luckily, nobody else suspected anything.

"Dumbledore was always the exception to the rule. I wouldn't be surprised," George Weasley said wistfully.

"So, what have we got?" asked Harry Potter, whose patience for long preliminaries had always been miniscule.

"Snape's evil twin is slowly taking over him."

"Thank you, Longbottom," Snape said, dripping poison.

"My pleasure sir," Neville smiled broadly.

"We have found a curious theory, about death being a two-way business," Granger said. "When something goes, another something comes in, and if you want to bring back something that is gone, you have to give up something that came in its stead."

"It's not a theory; it's common knowledge," the Baron stated solemnly. "One life ends, another life starts."

"What you are speaking about now is just ghostlore, dear Baron, with all due respect," Avery said gently. "I've read your notes on it, Miss Granger, along with the source, and I must say it's quite revolutionary. Too bad you don't have the Necromantic ability. You'd turn the whole field upside down."

Snape could tell that sincere admiration was quite noticeably spiced with sarcasm in Nigel's words, but obviously it didn't bother Granger one bit. If her thoughts could have such power, a bright neon word IDEA would be flashing over her hair right now. Whatever it was that was rolling the gears in her head r, Severus did not like it at all.

"So, to bring it down to basics, we have to find what 'came in' when Hermione turned the Stone, to bring the two of your incarnations back together?" George Weasley asked, using his fingers as quotation marks. "Sounds simple enough."

"Easier said than done," Granger said with a sigh. "Another solid bit of information we have is that the process has to include a willing soul."

"We do not know exactly how solid this bit of information is," Snape said, irritated that she would so blindly trust Lucius.

"Where does it come from?" Potter asked. Since the conversation had ventured into Horcrux and Dark Magic dominions, he seemed much more involved.

Miss Granger briefly relayed Lucius's ramblings.

"I... uh... I think he might have a point," Potter said, rubbing his forehead. Severus wondered briefly if his scar still gave him trouble or if it was just a habit.

"Spill, Harry."

That mentoring tone again. Snape rolled his eyes and felt oddly sympathetic towards Potter and even Weasley. That woman must have been a nightmare at school.

"Well, you know how I had a piece of Riddle in me all those years and kept seeing into his head at times. I guess some of the things he wanted me to see, but others I saw in spite of his efforts to hide them. I didn't pass them all on to Dumbledore because some of them were plain old batshit and others were just too much information... I did retell all the relevant things, though."

Miss Granger seemed to be coiled like a tight spring in her place, ready to jump up and generate ideas.

"I do remember that he wanted to be whole because he felt the Horcruxes were not a safe option any longer. And he did believe he could."

So, there was, indeed, a way to make him whole. And still it was as feasible as making a pancake out of the full moon and eating it for breakfast.

"Could that thing that has 'come in' be Severus's Necromancy gift?" Minerva offered, deep in thought.

"Unlikely," Avery answered, but the way he rubbed his chin suggested that he wasn't as sure as he sounded.

"Gran says that Mum's gift was Death's guarantee," Neville said from his seat. "She says Mum had it because she'd fooled Death once, and Death does not suffer being fooled lightly. He marks those who do."

"Our lore has it," Avery said, drawing a clear line between himself and Longbottom with a delicate stress on 'our', "that our gift is how the time spent in yonder world marks us."

"So, basically, it's what comes in when you go?" George asked.

"Not exactly. We do come back whole."

"Not exactly," the Baron said, copying Avery's tone.

Every pair of eyes in the room looked at him in surprise.

"It's time. The precious minutes a living soul has spent in the realm of Death. Human lives are so brief that even a few seconds of their appointed time are an immeasurable wealth. Those minutes you gave to Death, you can never get them back. And when you go for a time, things can travel here, as well. They even say Death can walk this earth during the time afforded by living souls. And for that time, you are gifted. The more you spend, the bigger the gift."

"How do you know all this?" Granger asked, her eyes round. Severus mentally commended her on calling upon the Baron for help.

"Almost a thousand years of watching the brightest scholars grow, discover and teach can do that to you, young lady," the Baron said condescendingly.

To the right of Severus, Nigel Avery sat with astonishment stilling his face.

"There goes your 'passive science', Nigel," Severus said sweetly. "Even a ghost knows better."

Avery just stared at him.

"Well, does it ring true?" Granger asked, and Severus cringed slightly at her tactless unwillingness to give credibility to the Baron's words.

"It does," Avery said blandly. "I was out for half a minute. I can't do much. I heard..." He cast a careful glance at Longbottom. "I heard Alice... Longbottom, was there for almost half-an-hour. She could... She could tell if you about to die. She could even win time for those who were doomed. It was miraculous."

Severus noticed how Longbottom sat with his eyes shining.

"But Professor Snape didn't give his time," Granger said quietly.

"So, that means his gift is an advance payment?" Minerva asked.

"Death does not give advance payments."

"Baron, this had better not be yet another one of your adages for keeping first-years properly awed," Minerva retorted.

"I suppose there may be some kind of misbalance formed. Severus was given his abilities because, technically, part of him is... doing time, so to say," Granger said musingly and looked at him.

"Do you think if Snape died properly for a minute or two and then came back, he'd be whole again?" Potter asked no one in particular with a typically Gryffindorish lack of tact. The Baron huffed, Avery rolled his eyes and Minerva pursed her lips. Even Granger gave him the eye.

It took all of Snape's willpower to hold back a poisonous remark.

"That won't work," Nigel said with a sigh.

"Why not? It sounds like common logic," Longbottom, another fine Gryffindor specimen, asked.

"Common logic is often the death knell of originality, Mr. Longbottom," Snape noted, slightly hurt that these two could shuffle the notion of his death so easily.

"Mr. Avery is right, Neville. Harry, remember, when we were searching for the Horcruxes? If Voldemort himself was to die first, he'd be reduced to that something... something you saw at King's Cross, something that he was before our fifth year. But if the Professor were to die, only his alter ego would remain, and he'd be trapped where he is forever."

Snape laughed bitterly.

"What's so funny, Professor?" Granger asked, annoyed.

"Do you realize that according to you, I can't even die properly?"

Her hand flew to her mouth.

"What about that macabre potion old Voldy used to make himself look like a snake?" George Weasley asked with a sombre face.

"Bone of the father, blood of the enemy, flesh of a friend," Potter recited.

"It didn't make the Dark Lord whole, it only altered what was left of him, and we all know the results of that alteration," Severus said, pinching the bridge of his nose. This idiotic counsel was getting to him fast. They'd found out everything they could. The only thing that was still holding him from getting up and stomping out, leaving them all to their inane theorizing was Granger's face. She'd thought of something and obviously wasn't planning on sharing her ideas.

He was listening with a half-ear for the rest of the conversation that was quickly turning into arguments, deep in thought. Nigel promised to look up Necromantic Potions; Minerva said she'd speak with Albus's portrait, provided that he wasn't sleeping again. Potter and Weasley arranged that they'd pensieve all that concerned Voldemort's thoughts about Horcruxes and shattering of souls and send it to him.

Severus had an overwhelming premonition that all that would be to no avail.

* * *

When the sun sank into an ominous mass of dark clouds, seething to the west, the counsel drew to a close. Avery and the Baron said their goodbyes and were first to leave. The Gryffindors, ever the last to wear on anyone's hospitality, lingered still.

"I wonder why he is place-attached," Potter said, looking into his teacup like it held all the answers in the world.

"Oh, Merlin," Granger breathed out. "Why in the world didn't I think of it before?"

Every conversation in the room paused.

"The Stone!" she squealed with elation. "Let's try it, Professor, sir! Perhaps it's not the place you're attached to, but the Stone! And if you carry it with you... My, oh my, I'm such a stupid, stupid cow!" She giggled and went on to hug Potter.

"It doesn't change much, Miss Granger," Snape said, following his patented pattern of putting a damper on everyone's bright spot. But deep inside, he rejoiced.

"Oh, don't be such a wet blanket, Severus," Minerva said, patting him on the shoulder affectionately. "If you could freely go places, it would be a great improvement on your situation. And I'm sure Miss Granger will find a way to fix it for good soon. She's the brightest student I ever had," Minerva added, pride shining in her eyes.

"I'm sure she is," Snape answered sourly.

"Well, we'd better get going," McGonagall said, made a meaningful face and yelled, "Boys!"

The 'boys' straightened up like three obedient little soldiers, and Severus felt a pang of jealousy that Minerva had always managed to keep that kind of power over her students, no matter how former they were. Slytherins always thought it a rule to start fraternizing with their Head of House once they left school.

"You treat her well, or else," she whispered in his ear loud enough for Granger to hear and go beetroot red.

Severus rolled his eyes for what seemed like the fiftieth time that evening.

Granger was practically jumping with impatience by the time everyone had left. Even the rain-promising clouds, which hugged the entire horizon, didn't seem to halt her. She flew upstairs, and in a matter of seconds was back, clutching the Stone in her hand.

"Come on! Let's test it." She ran out of the door and Snape followed, gingerly grabbing his cloak.

"What if it doesn't work?" he called after her, suddenly feeling very inadequate for the task of coping with his life, should her theory be proved wrong.

"It will! I'm sure of it!" She laughed, and running up to him, took his hand. "Here. Let's try it, Professor. Please."

Looking into her eyes, he understood that he simply didn't have it in him to say 'no' right now.

The usual half-a-mile that ended so quickly when he strode from one end of his little domain to the other seemed endless, even though he and Granger all but ran to the sea. Finally, the scarce few trees that marked the edge of his prison appeared, and Severus's heard was beating a storm against his ribs. He stopped just a few steps before the supposed barrier, unable to go further, as if his feet were rooted to the ground.

Granger stood just beyond the invisible line and looked at him with begging eyes. Her urging presence was making Severus witlessly angry.

He squeezed the Stone in his hand, like it was a chunk of cheese and he wanted to wring the last drop of whey out of it, and stepped forward.

He kept his eyes bored into the ground and listened to the sound of the waves. His feet moved once and then again, and a few more steps, up and up the hill. The sound of crashing waves had never been so inviting before.

"Look now." Granger's voice sounded intimately close, and she tugged at his hand.

Taking a deep breath, Snape lifted his head.

And she was right.

He would have found the view underwhelming at any other time. Dull, weather-worn stones, seaweed cast ashore by the night's storm and rotting in clots, a few fat seagulls lolling in the waves, and an endless stretch of water, leaden-gray under the overcast sky.

But at this very moment, it was the most beautiful sight in the entire world.

For a moment he just stood there, revelling in the 'finally' of it all.

"You're kind of free now," Granger said beside him.

Even that 'kind of' couldn't spoil the moment.

"I kind of am," Snape whispered and turned his head to her. "Are you crying?"

"Oh, no, I'm... It's just the wind. It's stinging my eyes," she said, hastily brushing tears away with her sleeve.

"You don't have to stay with me now and listen to me nag about everything." Her voice sounded stiff, and her giggle was forced.

"If I wasn't sure you sleep and dream of kicking me out of your house for good, I'd think there was a note of regret in that," he said mildly.

"To be honest, there is."

There was one thing Snape had always liked about Gryffindors. At certain pivotal moments, they showed simple honesty which was absolutely disarming.

She squeezed his hand reassuringly, and for a while they just stood there, watching the waves. Severus spared a humorous thought for the fact that the moment was hopelessly romantic, and he was actually enjoying it and wondered if it would be a good time to kiss her. Before he could ponder where this particular thought had come from, they were suddenly interrupted by a loud peal of thunder. Miss Granger startled and laughed, and a few seconds later, rain poured down, drenching them to the bone in a minute.

"Merlin, Granger, we'll catch our deaths here," Snape grumbled and offered her a flap of his cloak. It was quite useless, but she dived under it with a smile and, as they started towards home, snaked her arm around his waist.

* * *

By the time they reached Granger's house, awkwardness had settled, and Severus thanked the gods for the rain's timely interruption.

"I'll make us something hot to drink," Hermione said, after they'd spell-dried themselves.

Severus sat in the chair he'd always occupied during their research sessions and waited. His mood was getting sourer by the second. Perhaps it would have been better to have left immediately after he'd seen her home. And now it was too late, and she'd consider it rude. Snape was furious for not having thought of it earlier and even more furious for giving two shits about whether she'd find him rude or not. Now that he didn't have an eligible reason to stay at Granger's house, his every single insecurity lurched at him, swarming his mind with 'what ifs'. What if she retreated to the kitchen because she expected him to leave and was trying to avoid a good-bye? What if she found him vile and disgusting and barely tolerated his presence? What if she'd think her part was done and left him to deal with his otherworldly twin by himself?

What if he'd kissed her then?

Granger returned with two mugs of steaming tea, and the expression on his face must have been so repugnant that she flinched. Silently, she handed him his cup and sat in the opposite chair. Rain pelleted on the slate roof, on window sills, and it seemed to Severus that the shuffling noise of multiple water drops was imprisoned in his very own head.

They drank their tea in a silence that was almost palpable and that hung between them as if someone had cast a magical fog spell in the room.

Finally, after what seemed like eons, Snape set his cup aside and rose, clearing his throat.

"I feel I shouldn't impose on your hospitality any longer, Miss Granger." He wanted to tell her not to dare stop her search, to make her feel guilty and keep her running on that guilt, keep her owling him and knocking on his door with every single silly find she'd get, but the words got stuck somewhere at the back of his throat. The Stone was placed in his pocket and protected with a Lose-me-not Charm, and Snape stuck a hand in, searching for reassurance and finding none.

Granger was looking at him with so much anticipation in her eyes that he wondered if she was expecting him to start popping slugs out of his mouth anytime. It was unnerving. She was clearly waiting for something, and he was clueless as to what.

Lost for words, hating long goodbyes, Severus nodded curtly and turned to leave. At that very moment, he was grabbed by the shirt on his chest and, after a split second, she was kissing him. His eyes flew open and then slowly drew closed.

She ended the kiss before he even had time to decide on a proper reaction. Granger was blushing painfully.

"Oh, I'm sorry. I don't know what came over me," she mumbled. Snape just stood there, staring at her, watching her grow numb with embarrassment and did nothing. Hating himself and doing nothing.

Then, taking her hand and pressing her fingers like a twelve-year-old Hufflepuff who'd been suddenly kissed by a voluptuous seventh-year Quidditch star, turned around and left.

His own home met him with frowsy air, stale bread, a fresh Doxy nest in the attic and a spoilt potion on the countertop. The cold hearth gaped at him hostilely, and old owl-mail orders had been dropped at his window by a few impatient birds.

Never in the entire ten years of his after-the-war existence had Snape loathed returning home so much.

He went directly to the cellar, picked a bottle of cheap Ogden's Firewhisky and lit a small fire in the fireplace. Giving it a second thought, he extinguished the fire and drank one snifter after another, fondling the Resurrection Stone.


	13. Chapter 12

He was again in that horrible place full of grey murky fog, fear and inconsolable grief. It wasn't Granger's home any longer, in fact, it wasn't any landscape he could remotely recognize. He was him, and at the same time, it was as if he were looking at someone else from above. They both were lost, irrevocably smitten away from their very existence, and for miles around there was nothing except those grey, clotting fumes, that deafening silence. He screamed, but nothing came out of his throat; the very air he exhaled was sucked out of him by a force so terrible, he didn't even want to know what it was. He tried to call for help, but realized that he'd forgotten all the words. His mind was still working, but apparently, it wasn't operating on verbal categories any longer. Perhaps he'd been reduced to an animal, or worse, a shadow of gods knew what: a being, destined to lurk on the borders of the world, knowing nothing, learning nothing, a hollow piece of unlife, punished for long-forgotten crimes by long-gone gods with no one able to release it.

There was only one notion in the entire world, and it was 'dead'. Dead, he was dead, and it was a revelation; the only thing that defined him, defined them both.

Then it seemed to him that the encompassing greyness started to creep into him, take over his thoughts, turning off the remaining words and impulses one by one, entering his bloodstream, making his silent heart beat slower yet. The feeling was indescribable. It just felt like nothing. Perhaps, he was dissipating. Then, just when he was about to succumb to it for good, he was dragged out of that horrible place, and then there was blackness. Severus welcomed it because, compared to nothing, black was a very desired colour.

* * *

The first thing Severus saw when he came to was a face. A very ordinary, heart-shaped face with a pointed chin and tawny eyes. He was so glad to see it that it was, decidedly, the best-looking face he'd ever seen and was, most definitely, spun by the dawn. It was streaked with tears and smiling stupidly, showing two rows of smallish teeth. A name, associated with the face swam into his head, along with all the knowledge and words lost to the dominion of ever gray silence.

Granger.

Severus tried to lift a hand to wipe a tear from her face, but couldn't. His body shook with the effort.

"No, no, don't, Professor. He almost sucked you dry. And it's all my fault." More tears ran down her face, and the smile melted away from it.

Snape raised his eyebrows in what he hoped to be understood as a question.

"I... uh... You've forgotten a few things. No, nothing important, but I thought I could use them as an excuse to... come and see you again. Your door was locked in the Muggle way, and no one answered me, so I dismantled your Magical locks and came in, and he was there. He seemed so happy when he saw me. And he looked more substantial. Suddenly, I hated him so much because he'd taken it all from you, and you've been getting tired so easily of late, and you hadn't had two straight hours of sleep in a month, probably, and..." She paused and sniffled loudly.

As Snape's senses started to return to him, he felt a warm presence in his hand, and it was her fingers clutching it. He squeezed them gently.

"So, when I saw him, when he started smiling at me, and oh, Professor, forgive me for saying this, but you wouldn't believe how insipid that smile looks on your face."

Severus managed another smile, his own this time, hearing that.

"Yes, that's more like it." Granger giggled between sniffles. "So, I told him that he was dead. Dead. Not human, just a shard of someone else's soul. At first he didn't understand me, so I conjured some parchment and wrote _you are dead_ on it. And he panicked. He was frantic. And I think... I think he ran away. I don't know where, but I have this feeling..." More tears poured out.

Severus firmly stamped down the side of him that was regularly annoyed by the sight of crying women and encouraged another, newer side, which found the fact that she'd use idiotic excuses just to see him adorable. As soon as that last part got strong enough, he put major effort into lifting a hand to her face. She pressed it to her cheek and smiled sadly.

"I'm scared," she mouthed.

"Of what?" he asked just as voicelessly.

"Of what can happen to you now." Her voice was a croak, and Severus felt something in his heart split and ache.

"Whatever you were thinking of, during that counsel, don't you even dare." Such a long tirade took all of his accumulated strength, and he closed his eyes for a second to rest. The next moment, something was touching his eyelids. Her lips. With an inhuman effort he drew her close. He wanted to tell her to sit tight and not even think of risking herself, but it wasn't only his kittenish weakness that prevented him.

The truth was that more than anything in the world right now, Severus Snape wanted Hermione Granger to go to unimaginable lengths to make him whole again, so that he could—

Severus inhaled deeply, nose burrowed in her hair. Such a simple, mundane smell. Something fruity, another something, nutty. So unsophisticated, so dear. His brain spun flicks and images of what they would be if only he were back in one piece again. He firmly shut it down. He'd had twenty years living on what-if's and learned his lesson well.

"There's some Strengthening Solution on the shelf in the loo," he whispered barely above an exhale. She kissed his cheek lightly, and then he wasn't holding her any longer. It didn't feel right.

* * *

"Are you feeling better?" Hermione asked, worry creasing her features after he'd drunk the potion, a coffee strong enough to keep a dragon awake for a week and a Muggle pain killer, on which she'd insisted.

"Yes," he lied smoothly and willed his face into reflecting nothing of what he'd experienced. The anxiety of the days when he'd lived away from his 'twin' returned tenfold, and he was smothered by a constant, diffuse ache. It was getting harder to focus. The only thought that allowed him to hold on was that a state like this could not last long. Or could it? Severus shivered.

"You're cold," Granger said, and ran for a blanket.

"Would you mind going back to my place?" she asked when she returned with a plaid rug. "I think maybe, your _alter ego_ could somehow get there. At least, it's the place where he spent quite some time."

"I don't mind."

The welcoming warmth and simplicity of her house seemed like a fantastic idea now.

"Are you up for a side-along?" Hermione inquired dubiously, giving him a sceptical once-over.

"I don't think I'm up to walking to the closest Apparition point, and I'm certainly not up to letting you dismantle the remains of my protection wards."

She smiled at him.

"I'll call Winky, then."

"That elf's still alive?" Snape remembered that there was something about Miss Granger and house-elves, something the Hogwarts staff joked about often.

"Winky! Winky!" Granger called out into the west corner of his small living room.

An old, wrinkled elf in a disgustingly bright tube-shaped muff, which covered her body from chest to knees, popped into the room.

"Winky is here, young Miss," it creaked and, seeing Snape, gave a loud quack, and hid behind Hermione, tugging at its ears and whining in ultimate terror.

"What is it, Winky?" Granger crouched beside the elf and tried to rescue its ears from being spanielised hopelessly.

"Professor Snape, sir, is halved, Miss," Winky squealed.

"What do you mean, halved?" Hermione asked carefully, and looked meaningfully at Snape. He found enough strength in him to roll his eyes.

"Half of he be in another place. It be eating his first half. It be soon whole in that place again."

"Gods, we've forgotten all about elf Magic, Professor," Granger whispered brokenly and pressed her hand to her eyes. "Winky, do you know where this place is?" she added with frantic hope.

"No, Miss, Winky is not knowing. Elves has their own place to go when time comes," Winky answered, now a little less shakily.

"Can I bring Professor Snape's half back?"

"No, Miss. But Miss can brings the whole back," Winky said, and nodded her head knowingly.

"What do you mean?" There was that glint again in Granger's eyes that Severus both liked and mistrusted.

"If soul is willing, Miss, soul can bring back. But soul cannot mend what is broken."

For a moment, everyone was silent. Even Winky, whose fear had seemed to have evaporated, stood timid and unmoving. It was so quiet that Severus could swear he was hearing the gears turn in Hermione's head. He wanted to unhinge? at her, to lash out and scream, to forbid her, but a desperate little thing within him held on to her firm faith that everything would be all right. He hated himself and said nothing.

Hermione explained to Winky that she wanted to transfer him to her own home, and half-an-hour later found Snape sitting in a chair on a small veranda facing Granger's failure of a garden.


	14. Chapter 13

"I have an errand to run," she told him in the morning, and pecked his cheek so insincerely that if he hadn't known better, he'd have thought she was regretting her... whatever was it between them. Severus had half-expected her to come upstairs to his room the night before and suggest they should delineate the boundaries of their relationship like the good little Gryffindor she was. Gryffindors, they were always about drawing lines.

But she hadn't. Her kiss goodnight was full of longing and promise, and when she came in a few times during the night to check on him, teetering between a light doze and reality, her hand had been soft and caring on his forehead.

In the morning he felt weaker. He thought he'd started forgetting things. Faces, facts. It was like his world was slowly narrowing down. Severus didn't mention it when she asked how he was feeling over coffee.

And now she was going off with some kind of a made up errand.

"Don't go," Severus told her, summoning all that was left of his teacher's voice and its commanding tones.

He was sitting in his chair again, cushioned and pillowed up, a perfunctory book on his lap, but they both knew that he was too weak to manage even a paragraph.

She ran up to him, clearly holding back the tears, and took his hand.

"Oh, don't worry. I'm just off for an hour or two. I have to see Neville. Neville is so good with plants, you know? Unlike me," she laughed bitterly. "I think I might ask him for some of the berries from his Magnolia Vine. They'd be good for strengthening potions for you."

She was blinking back tears, and even in his addled state, he could tell a blatant lie when it looked him in the face.

"Don't. Go," he said again, and squeezed her hand as if he were able to hold her back by force.

"I won't be long. I promise."

That had to be the fakest promise which had ever passed Hermione Granger's lips, and Severus's growing horror had to be shining through his eyes because she started crying in earnest and put her hands around his neck.

"I'm sorry..." she whispered.

Momentarily soothed, he took in the smell of her hair. And just like that, she flew out of his embrace and out the door.

For the longest moment, Severus had a feeling of time standing absolutely still. It was like the entire world had suddenly been swallowed into that pit of gray nothingness he'd now seen twice already and was now seeing its last moments before endless murk swallowed all its colours and liveliness.

When the mirage passed, he was so relieved that it was almost easy to get up. He'd made it to the kitchen only, but that was quite enough. There, on the top shelf, he and Granger kept a special batch of Strengthening Solution, brewed just in case. It would leave him a vegetable for a week after the assigned two hours of its effect ended, but somehow he knew that this was exactly the occasion to use it.

He downed it in one go. It took the potion about half-an-hour to take effect, and Severus sat on pins and needles, waiting for exhaustion to ebb away.

Finally, after what seemed like ages, his limbs were sizzling with freshness and energy like tree branches with sap in spring. Only then was his mind clear enough to realize that she could be anywhere. It was too late to trace an Apparition, assuming that she'd actually made one. He had two hours of normalcy and nothing to do with them.

Rage was sudden, like a crushing wave. With a growl, Snape banged his fist on the entrance door.

And heard a loud scream outside.

Severus flung the door open and saw a very frightened Neville Longbottom.

"Oh, Professor, sorry! What did that door do to you? Scared the fairy lights out of me."

There went her lie about Magnolia Vines. Something inside Severus detached and went up into the gray dome above him.

"I thought she went to your place," he said in a hollow voice, dead sure that Longbottom would understand what he was talking about.

"She did, and... that's why I'm here." Longbottom's eyebrows seemed to be glued to a spot in his forehead by their inner ends, and his mouth was a hopeless 'O'.

"Good God..." Severus said under his breath and was preparing to listen to whatever horror he was about to hear when there was a loud pop, which signified a rather hasty Apparition, and both Neville and Severus turned to see Avery hurrying towards them from a small cherry orchard, which marked the nearest Apparition point.

"Severus!" Avery yelled, dropping his usual perfect manners. "You should keep your woman in check! You won't believe what she asked of me!"

"She's not my woman," he snapped, exasperated that Avery would be so keen.

"Yes, whatever. I saw the way you look at her."

"Did she come to you, too?" Longbottom asked with something that sounded like a hiccup.

"What, you were her first choice, eh?"

"What are you two blathering on about?" Snape demanded none too patiently.

"I wonder who she went to next," Longbottom asked, worrying his chin.

"Hell, you should know her better. Weren't you two pieced together at school?"

"What the fuck is going on?" Snape bellowed, a hair short of an Unforgivable for both the idiots.

"About ten minutes ago, your little friend came to me with the strangest request, Severus. I've never heard anything of its kind, and I was a Death Eater, mind you," Avery said with an amusement that Snape found incredibly misplaced.

"For Merlin's Sake, Nigel, cut the godsdamned preamble."

"She wanted someone to supervise her death," Longbottom blurted out.

Severus stood as if Longbottom had just Stupefied him. "Whatever for?" he heard his own voice through the mad ringing of blood in his ears.

"Fool," Avery spat. "She wants to save your worthless arse, idiot. She thinks if she makes a Reversed Transition and gives her own time, she'll pay your... fee. And bring you back."

"What idiocy," Snape whispered to no one in particular, feeling the world crumple about him like a piece of paper in a careless hand.

"Precisely. Death does not make bargains. But she believes that claptrap about willing souls."

"How was she going to..." Snape's lips said automatically while his mind was somewhere far off. Blasted, stupid girl. Damned selfless Gryffindor, wanting to play saviour again. Severus had always believed that Gryffindor selflessness was the ultimate form of egoism.

"She kept saying something about easiest reversal and how she had no time to talk anyone at Mungo's into doing the induced coma thing," Longbottom said, and then, seeing Snape's deathstare, deadpanned, "Drowning."

The word rang with such horror that Snape shivered. What a horrible, painful death. No air made one inhale water and when it got to the lungs it felt like they were bursting. Severus closed his eyes for a second.

"Where might she go next?" Avery asked, shaking him out of his trance.

"Lucius," Snape answered firmly.

* * *

He didn't risk wasting precious energy on an independent Apparition, and since Avery had confessed he wasn't quite the best at Apparating, Snape was forced to endure Longbottom's embrace. Longbottom appeared to be so stressed by the necessity of putting his arms around his once dreaded Potions master that Severus almost wished he'd feel bad enough to vomit on the damned fool's shoes when they reached their destination.

They were met by a frantic house-elf. The creature obviously knew Snape and Avery from times before, and it gave a relieved squeal.

"Did a young witch show up here a little while ago?" Avery asked it in a businesslike tone.

"Yes, Mister, sir. They be in the park with Master Lucius. They be summoning glass, lots of glass."

The Manor was huge, and Severus prayed he'd have enough energy to dole out a few blows to Lucius's face, which had long been too perfect for his age and lifestyle.

He was imagining all sorts of possible scenarios, but nothing could prepare him for the sight that opened up to them when they ran up the hill and turned round the corner of the West Wing.

There, in a glass cube full of water, Hermione Granger was swimming, eyes wide open. Lonely bubbles of air left her mouth, and her chestnut hair floated above her like a brown ink cloud. A very distressed Lucius Malfoy stood next to the cube, wand at the ready.

Then Granger saw him and pressed her hands to the glass. The whiteness of them was heart-wrenching.

"What are you doing? What are you..." It came out half a shriek and half a wheeze, and Severus unleashed a barrage of spells to break the glass.

"It won't work!" Malfoy yelled. "She's charmed it to break when her heart stops beating."

"How could you? This is suicide! You allowed her to—" Snape clapped his mouth shut. His lips refused to even let the word crease the muscles on his face.

In the glass cube, Hermione Granger was weeping. Severus couldn't see her tears, they were mixing with the water, but he knew that she was crying her heart out.

In all his life, with all its terrors, this was the single, most horrible sight.

"She wants to help you. And I'm helping her. She promised to deliver a message, if she can," Lucius said, as if it could have excused his shocking negligence.

"If Narcissa wanted to have it delivered, she'd contact you herself. There are ways," Snape said, each word like the precise stab of a professional.

Hermione was getting more frightened by the minute, and it almost undid Severus to see her trying to compose herself. She'd ran out of air and was still keeping her mouth shut, but he knew that soon, all too soon, instincts would take over, and she'd take that last fatal breath.

A gust of wind blew, and it felt cold on his cheeks. Only then did Severus notice that tears were running down his face freely.

Finally, unable to hold out any longer, Hermione mouthed something, which Severus couldn't understand, letting the last of the air in her lungs escape, and gulped.

Snape had once read that death by drowning was painful. It was supposed to be short, but Hermione seemed to be gulping on water for a few eternities. More than anything in the world at this moment, Severus Snape wanted to turn around and close his eyes, to save himself from this sight, but he dared not. He'd called this upon himself. Allowed it to happen. No matter the outcome, her mad, unseeing eyes, her silent scream, muffled by water, was going to haunt him and ring in his ears 'til the end of his days.

And then it was over. Her eyes glazed over and her hands that had been pressed to his through the glass let go and floated up, tangling in her hair.

Then the cube shattered and broke.

She was smart, always had been. So, while Severus expected, and even welcomed, being drenched in water and covered in glass shards, it all just dissipated, and Hermione, his Hermione, was lying on the grass of Malfoy Manor, dead.

"Why are you just standing there? Do something!" Longbottom, crying and wiping away tears with his sleeve, screamed, his voice breaking as if he were a pubescent fourth-year.

"She said to wait five minutes. To make sure she actually died. She set up a timer," Lucius whispered in a daze.

"Fuck five minutes," Snape spat, and went down to turn her over.

Water ran out of her mouth, and they all took turns to magically pump air into her lungs. She'd shown a spell to Lucius that imitated direct heart massage, but the minutes were ticking away and nothing had happened. Hermione Granger was still lying in the grass: lips blue, skin white, dead and listless like a sawn birch.

Severus groaned and threw away his wand, kneeling. Desperate, like a lonely warrior that had lost all his weapons and been surrounded by enemies a moment after, Snape blew air into her mouth in kisses he never thought he'd be giving her, never wished to give again. Her chest under his hand jerked with the spells which Avery and Lucius kept casting.

"Come on," he urged, heedless of the tears dropping onto her face. "Come on, Granger. Tuck it, you've given enough of your time. Come on, breathe!"

There was a flapping of wings, and Hades, Lucius's condescending bird into whose good books Granger had got, oiling her way in with crispy bacon and tarts, hooted longingly above.

"Keep casting," Severus said urgently, remembering how an owl's hooting had dragged him out of his own deathly limbo.

Seconds were hours and minutes were weeks. Hades stopped hooting and landed to sit on Lucius's shoulder, and Hermione Granger was still walking on the other side.

The words prickled in his mouth, in everyone's mouth. It seemed the very wind was breathing them, and yet not one of them dared to speak out loud. _It won't work_.

The first tickles of exhaustion shook Severus's limbs. He hadn't counted on heavy physical activity shortening the Potion's effect. Avery and Lucius had stopped casting, and Snape felt someone's hand on his shoulder.

"No!" he screamed, and blew air into her mouth with renewed force.

Suddenly, she jerked and coughed and water spurted out of her lips. Longbottom gave a delighted, teary scream.

"Quick, get elves and blankets," Avery ordered him, and the hapless boy ran readily.

Finally, her eyes opened, and a hand rose up to his cheek.

"You killed yourself, you idiot," he said, kissing the inner side of her palm. "I'm this close to throttling you right back into oblivion for that."

"But I didn't. I'm back," she croaked and smiled. "God, my lungs are on fire."

"Good," Severus answered with satisfaction. The pain in her lungs still had leagues to go before hitting the boundaries of hurting like the feeling of loss that still echoed in him, but he felt avenged a little. And elated. She was back.

"I just wanted to fulfil your part of the deal," she said apologetically. "Did it work? You look energized."

"It didn't, Hermione. It's the potion. The one from the top shelf, remember?"

"Oh," she said, and Severus watched the light go dimmer in her eyes. "All in vain, then?"

He didn't answer, just placed a light kiss on her lips.

"I have a message for you," she called out to Lucius.

Malfoy Senior roused himself like a giant peacock. Snape had never seen him with so much emotion spilling over. It was a sight that was both awe-inspiring and made him want to turn around, as if he had stumbled upon something intimate.

"_Tell him that I'm not. And to check the secret compartment in my blue, ivory jewel box._ That's what she said. She was smiling," Granger told him, and Lucius's mouth quirked up in an almost childish smile.

"Please, excuse me for being a bad host for a few minutes," he said, and set off in a most undignified jog towards the main entrance.

"He wanted Narcissa to know that he loved her and wondered if she was sorry to have married him," Hermione told them by way of an explanation.

"Let's go back," Snape said, trying to hold the despair and fear of his impending fate at bay by thinking how she'd pulled it off, got back, and by watching the colour seeping slowly back into her cheeks and lips.

* * *

The only thing Severus Snape regretted, when his fingers started to grow numb after the Potion had started letting go of his body, was that he didn't have an extra hour to take Hermione Granger upstairs and fuck her into the creaky, uncomfortable mattress in her second bedroom.

The Potion could be administered again, but for it to have the same effect, at least a month should have passed between ingestions. Severus didn't have that month. He wasn't sure how much time he had, but was fairly certain that the count was in days. Maybe hours.

Hermione only left his side to take quick showers and use the loo. Avery, Neville, Potter, George Weasley, Minerva and even Lucius stopped by irritatingly often, the latter sappy and happy like an exalted poodle after finding a letter from his deceased wife, written not long before her death.

Surprisingly, Hermione's supposed Necromantic ability never asserted itself. Avery even brought a Sign of Contact to her, but she failed to see it.

She took great hope in the fact, and Severus didn't dare to argue it. For his own part, he firmly believed that her lack of Necromancy skills was the consequence of a self-inflicted death. When he relayed his thoughts to Avery, Nigel failed to confirm Snape's suspicion, but neither did he share Granger's sentiment that Severus somehow was yet to get back.

Days flew by, and minutes of clarity grew numbered. More often than not, the world around him was now muffled and dimmed.

Autumn was in full swing, swirling roundels of yellowed leaves and showering the earth with rain. In the morning, migrant birds crossed the sky in flocks, and their far cries served as reality anchors for Severus.

He was glad to be dying in autumn when the very nature around him was also dying for the winter. It would have been a bitter irony to die in spring, and Severus had had enough bitter irony in his life.

In the morning, Granger levitated a chair outside, to the seashore, and together they sat, listening to the waves.

When his vision was clear enough, Snape noticed the tightness of her lips, the two smudges of purple underneath her eyes and the two small lines, sadly dragging the corners of her mouth down.

On the tenth day, he asked for the top shelf Strengthener.

"But it won't work very much!"

"A little will be enough," he said, barely above whisper. Even through the haze that was his constant companion now, he sensed something, some newness, like a gust of wind in a dark cave that signified a way out.

It appeared that something was shaking the ether not only for him. The house was suddenly stock full of guests; they came and stayed, chattering away about all things relevant and irrelevant, reminiscing, catching up, drinking pints of tea, commending Severus on his slightly more established vitality, courtesy of the Potion.

Hermione looked at them all with round eyes. Severus, too, noticed an occasional tear being dabbed on, or a tight smile, a sad whisper.

"This looks too much like a goodbye for my taste," she told him when afternoon was gently flowing into a calm, quiet evening.

"Let's go out to the shore," Severus said, avoiding an answer.

The sea met them with an unusually serene, deep gray surface. The sun was sinking to the west, leaking pretty orange and red into the sky.

They sat together, huddled close under her favourite tree, his chair cast aside. There was a sense of peace about, as if something big and wondrous was waiting around the slope of the hill, not pushing, but substantial enough for Severus to recognize its presence and inevitable coming. He, too, was being given time.

"I want you to know that I don't blame you. In fact, I wouldn't change anything," he said, gently, lacing his fingers through hers.

"But I..." she said, and choked on a sob.

"There are no windmills left to tilt at . You have given me more than I can say." It was a poor consolation, he knew. He wished he were able to better express just how content and whole he was feeling right now. He'd always thought he'd die alone, bitter and forgotten, and his body would be found months later, consumed by decay, by some unfortunate busy-body, who would stumble into the house by chance, when its protective spells had disappeared due to not being renewed.

And here he was, surrounded by people who cared, who fussed and pottered about him, trying to make his going easier, brighter.

"I wish we'd had more time," she said, swallowing tears.

"So do I." He kissed her brow, her lips, and her entire face. A bit too plain for modern fashion, but an infinitely dear face.

"You will be whole soon," she whispered, and Severus knew that it was more for her own consolation than for his encouragement.

"I am whole now."

The serenity, the peace, tugged at him gently, letting him know that it was time. And he, too, wanted to give in and relish the eternity of it.

"What did you say when you were in that horrid cube of water?" he asked, his voice weakening.

"I said I love you. And I do."

"Good," Severus said, "Good."

And then Severus Snape closed his eyes.

* * *

Voldemort had taught him to fly years back, but that flying was nothing compared to the absolute freedom of soaring, seemingly not only through space but also through time and unnumbered dimensions. Solar winds passed through him, lighting his very being up.

Severus looked down and saw an endless sea below, a rocky shore climbing upwards, small waves licking at it and a few lone trees, branches stretched out wide. A couple was sitting under one of them, the man's cheek pressed to the woman's heart. Her hand was streaking through limp black hair, and she was looking out to the sea.

Severus looked up and saw himself. Or, to be more precise, he knew that the being he was staring at, was himself. The being emanated light, and Severus wanted to come and soak it up. Both of them drew closer and finally merged.

The effect was rather underwhelming. He'd expected something like an implosion of colours, senses and words, but it was merely a quiet recognition, as if finding something once very dear, but lost so long ago that he'd learned to do without it.

And then there was a voice.

"You are whole again, my boy." It sounded awfully like Dumbledore, but not quite.

"Her gift of time was accepted." Or maybe it was his mother, Eileen, but Severus couldn't tell for sure. She'd passed such a long time ago that he wasn't positive he remembered her voice that well.

"Her soul was found willing." Lily? Perhaps, anything was possible.

Severus looked around, knowing, again, that he didn't have much time to ponder. Everywhere his eyes fell, he saw glimpses of uncounted worlds, and the variety was so magnificent that his mind reeled and throbbed. He knew that he could go anywhere. He was absolutely free.

But the uttermost manifestation of freedom was that he could even go back, down below, to where a woman still sat at the seashore, hugging the head of her beloved close to her heart.

He closed his eyes yet again.

He heard birds. The cooing, crowing, squealing, chirruping of a multitude of birds. Seagulls, herons, meadowlarks, which should have long gone south, even an occasional owl hooting. Severus Snape opened his eyes to the quickly darkening sky. Under his ear, a living heart skipped a beat and thumped madly. He took a deep breath and heard a muffled scream and then relieved sobs.

"I think I'm back in one piece," Severus said hoarsely.

"Good, good," Hermione Granger replied, and laughed. And then cried. And laughed again.

FIN


End file.
